Humanities desk
< May 27	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

What is the meaning of the colour inverted Union Jack in this depiction of the Battle of Ridgeway? 91.221.58.29 (talk) 11:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It could be unintentional? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right, it's chromolithograph, so they may have simply mixed up which region of the flag belonged on which color plate. --Amble (talk) 17:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That can't be the case, or the British-Canadian forces in the battle would also have blue, not the correct red, jackets of the 13th Battalion from Hamilton (the Queen's Own Rifles of Toronto, also involved, had dark green uniforms).

Possibly this is not the Union Flag (aka "Jack"), but the Colours of one of those units at that date. (It resembles a Russian naval jack, presumably coincidentally.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

found an inconclusive reddit discussion of a substantially similar flag seen flown from a ship in Canaletto's "A View of Greenwich from the River", c. 1750. (at right here: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/canaletto-a-view-of-greenwich-from-the-river-l01926)

discussions on reddit tend toward the conclusion that it was an accurate depiction of an irregular version of the union jack, based on vague early definitions of the flag. i don't feel entirely convinced. 91.194.221.225 (talk) 11:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A printer's error seems the most likely by far, perhaps after a liquid lunch. Alansplodge (talk) 12:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was suggesting an error when preparing the plates, not an error when applying the colored ink for printing. --Amble (talk) 17:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. But we'll probably never know. Alansplodge (talk) 17:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And what's with 'IRA' on the Fenian (so-called) flag? —Fortuna, imperatrix 16:49, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The raiders apparently referred to themselves as the "Irish Republican Army". See e.g. here and here. Zacwill (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The uniforms of the Fenians are wrong too. Perhaps the artist wasn't actually there and made some things up? DuncanHill (talk) 19:49, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many (most) streets have houses numbered with odds on one side and evens of the other, rather than simply consecutively. Why is this? When did this convention originate? Who gets to decide which side is numbered with evens and are there any guiding principles for this choice? Thanks. 2A00:23C7:533:3C01:E5C6:F19A:E5A4:6577 (talk) 18:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article about House numbering, which may go some way to answering your questions. DuncanHill (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They don't have to renumber every time the street gets longer. In NYC they try to make the north+east sides odd & south+west sides even. North+east are the nominal trump cards in western culture (map up, orientation of churches, ad orientum, T-O map (orient means east), east longitudes are positive) so house number 1 (or [lowest block]-01 if Queens) is on the "right side of the father" since they don't start at zero like programmers. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I didn't know. I will have a look. Thank you.

If, say, the street was initially built with 100 houses and one side was 1–50, the other side could be numbered either 51–100 or 100–51; the former would put 51 opposite 1 and 100 opposite 50, the latter would mean 51 was across the street from 50, but 100 was opposite 1: both could be confusing, although both schemes are sometimes used, particularly in shorter 'closes' which cannot be extended.

But what if the street was later lengthened? Both the arrangements above would force a discontinuity; 50 would be followed by 101 and 51/100 by some rather higher number. A yet later extension would create yet another discontinuity: the road I myself currently live in was built in several such stages as my town grew. To avoid such discontinuities, each new section would have to be given a different name, with numbers re-commencing from 1.

If instead numbers are odd on one side and even on the other (as in my road), the initial build will have 99 and 100 opposite each other at the furthest end, and newer houses can simply extend the scheme indefinitely, with n and n+1 always roughly opposite. {The poster formerly known as 87.781.230.195} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.193.154.147 (talk) 20:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I've ever seen it recorded where the convention started, but the article cites Napoleon having ordered it in Paris in 1805 with particular reference to the orientation of the street in relation to the Seine. I recall having had a non-standard local town house numbering scheme in NZ explained to me that the choice of sides was effectively a direction finder - by keeping odd numbers on one's left as one walked one would eventually find their way to the centre of town. (This sceheme involved having even numbers on the left viewed from the start of each street - the reverse of what the current standard prescribes). Daveosaurus (talk) 08:10, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's pretty neat. Is it a grid city or organic? Is there a landmark in the center of town like a square or building or traffic circle or major intersection? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:38, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It began as a grid which it very quickly outgrew (which is typical of cities in New Zealand). It also had a recognisable centre landmark (although I think it was actually the post office - which was maybe 100 yards from the centre landmark - which was being measured to).Daveosaurus (talk) 07:36, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I have seen all four possible assignments of odds and evens in different American grid cities. —Tamfang (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I know this I'll never visit city without checking parity again! For the longest time I assumed it's inconsistent (I learned 1251 6th Avenue was odd west around age 16 didn't realize 6th Av was an outlier). So perhaps NYC and/or some other cities had some other reason like "random" or "mayor or numberer felt even was more important" or "someone wanted their house to be 1"? I always wanted a book or site with factoids+oddities like these i.e. how was parity picked, is 6697 Broadway NYC's highest "England-style" (consecutive), did numbered streets once go higher, does anything start <1, do multiple "extras" exist like 9/9A/9B, what's the lowest jail island # (a directory has 9-09 Hazen Street), highest suffix in 100-per-block-territory (it exceeds -99 in dashland?), are Manhattan numbered streets great circles or rhumb lines (each avenue's as parallel to a 28°59'38.27" rhumb (10th) as they could survey), which intersections are exactly 90°, exact coordinates of all NYC intersections (beyond a certain accuracy this is way harder to estimate than it'd seem (lanes/curbs/building edges move, mass-market maps aren't accurate enough, a better but not GIS good app I know misaligns i.e. Open Street Map vs topo+even the orthorectified photos are blurrier than Google Sat+show building sides that I'm 100% sure aren't one of the slanting ones), etc. Does a book or site like that exist? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:07, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From a previous discussion I recall that, in the UK, house numbers typically start at 1 for each unique street name. You geolocate to the UK so that's probably what you're most asking about, but as a matter of possible interest, it's quite different in most parts of the United States. Often you will have some fixed increment, typically 100, per "block", even though there aren't 100 houses in a block, so that it's easy to guess how many cross-streets you need to pass before you find the address you want. Also there's no guarantee that the numbers start with a low value like 100; it's quite common to have streets with only 4-digit house numbers, or even only 5-digit numbers in more urban areas. --Trovatore (talk) 04:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then you have Manhattan where a non-renamed avenue starts at 11 Wadsworth Avenue ("11.5th Avenue") where it'd be about 17311 if it was 100 per block (21311 if street numbering started at the southernmost street instead of the southernmost part of the 1811 countryside) & Queens where non-renamed avenues+streets start at 147-05 2nd Avenue, 83-07 165th Avenue & 75-58 271st Street. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In some US cities there are "interrupted streets" (consisting of non-contiguous segments) but with the numbering system proceeding as if the missing parts are filled with numbered ghost buildings. For example, the lowest odd number following 435 Tasso St in Palo Alto, CA, is 1319 Tasso St; these addresses are separated by eight city blocks without Tasso Street.^[1] For parallel streets these are the 500 through 1200 blocks.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:18, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my street, mentioned above, a run of odd numbers on one side was skipped where instead a school was built as part of that stage of extension (in about 1890, I think; my own house was built as part of a further stage about ten years later). Within the last 20 years this school became redundant, was demolished, and new houses were built on part of the site (the rest becoming a car park) that were able to take up the previously unused numbers in the sequence. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 23:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Skipped numbers are really common in Manhattan. They didn't number a city that already existed like Central London but more like the other way around (citied numbers that already existed) and the lots are really skinny if they've never been merged if they have a skyscraper could subsume every odd or even in 20 numbers plus 10 or more on the side streets all merged to 1 lot and it seems owners could keep the coolest seeming of their numbers i.e. 1211, 1221, 1251 and 1271 Avenue of the Americas 107 numbers skipped in 6 blocks of 1197 and 1319 Avenue of the Americas inclusive (everyone calls it 6th Avenue). They often end in 0 like 350 5th Avenue (Empire State Building) you can sort all pre-2021 addresses over 600 feet here. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:03, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I live in a US city I'm aware. The 1st one's cause 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 were legally fused into 1 lot (615 West 173rd Street (cause New Yorkers who don't know Wadsworth will know ### Compass Direction ###?)) and the "2 through 20 block" is 4116 Broadway (more famous of a street than Wadsworth, 173 or 174). Also the lowest I could find on Google Maps is 3 Wadsworth on the 615 tax lot but the sign says "615 W.". The others really do start that high cause they had to number the contiguous orange that's hard to do without many streets starting above 1-01. 1st Street starts at 26-01 it's the tip of the bump near the blue islands. 1st Avenue doesn't seem to exist maybe cause there's a few 1 dash number houses on a dead end street north of 2nd Avenue? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike the system in Western countries where houses are numbered consecutively on the street, in Japan, house numbers are usually not arranged in sequence. Stanleykswong (talk) 19:16, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it true they're numbered in chronological order within the block and the blocks are commonly referred to by number (unlike the US where block numbers (the this is the 7,654th block in the city or county kind not the this is the 100 block of Oak Street cause it's between 1st and 2nd) are only on tax maps)? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does chronological order mean he first house built will be number 1, etc? HiLo48 (talk) 23:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First building on the block. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:09, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What defines Japanese numbering-blocks? Can a block cross a street, or be bounded in part by a non-street? —Tamfang (talk) 19:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That I do not know or even if the answers are consistent nationwide. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I remember reading that at least within the Tokyo metropolitan area, most residences within a given district are numbered according to how old they are, or how recently they were constructed. So a higher number would denote a newer built house. I don't know if this logic applies to, or has ever applied to, other parts of Japan. 72.234.12.37 (talk) 14:03, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]