Talk:Massachusetts/Archive 1

message: What is The Commonwealth of Massachusetts all about? Keith D. Tyler ¶ [AMA] 02:12, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)
:Look here, Keith, we are trying to do an article.Dave 02:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aw fork 

message: The state map is provisional, it is planned to be like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. States/mockups. Especially for small states one can see very little of the state on the US map. - Patrick 19:59, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  State map 

message: :The Ivy League university Harvard University is arguably the most famous university in the world; Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute are top engineering and science universities; Amherst College and Williams College in western Massachusetts are top liberal arts colleges; Wellesley College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College are top women's colleges; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Berklee College of Music are but two of the specialist institutions that are at the top of their fields.
When I read this, I experience a rising tide of nausea and an intense desire to do something humiliating to the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the student body of all those "top" schools. 
Particularly Harvard. Most famous university in the world.  in the world? Harvard is more famous than that twelfth-century pile of dreaming spires in England? I think it will take more than an "arguably" to fix THAT statement... VE*RI*TAS indeed. Dpbsmith 03:46, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OTOH, 32,500 pages link to www.harvard.edu, while 31,900 link to www.ox.ac.uk. -KeithTyler
This argument seems to have been settled with the US News & World Report rankings criteria. While that criteria is debatable, I removed Emerson since it is not on the US News list.
----
Emerson College is a highly-respected film school. I wouldn't rely on USNWR rankings for any of our decisions -- they're crap. --AaronS 17:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not a traditional liberal arts college, though. I don't think it should be included alongside Amherst, Williams et al. Rhobite 17:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Emerson is the only school in the nation devoted exclusively to the communicative arts.  Certainly that makes it noteworthy?146.243.4.157 15:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Higher education POV-fest 

message: The "legal holidays" section says "Massachusetts has several state holidays" and then presents a list which contains exactly one state holiday. I'd recommend throwing out the entire section, mentioning Patriot's Day somewhere else in this article, and adding Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day to the Suffolk County article where they belong. AJD 04:15, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Mass. General Laws Chapter 6 contains over 100 legal state holidays.  Section 12C makes Bunker Hill Day a state holiday, and 12K makes Evacuation Day a state holiday.  They're only really paid attention to in Suffolk County, but they're still state holidays.  Easier than trying to put down all the ones that are completely ignored.  Good Friday...  eh...  that's a tough one.  Just my two cents.  Sahasrahla 08:31, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)
minor note: I've moved the Evacuation Day page to Evacuation Day (Massachusetts) due to a similarly-named holiday (or rather, former holiday) in New York.  Don't worry, I'm taking care of the redirects.--Pharos 07:46, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal holidays 

message: I think we should mention this often-cited nickname of the state, because it shows more of the state's character.  Anybody else?  --Mjklin 21:07, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)
*I disagree. It's a decades-old detail of local politics. It's rarely used outside the state, and it's rarely used anymore inside the state (it was only used by Republicans, e.g. to attack Dukakis when he was governor, and they don't use it anymore because we've had Republican governors for about a decade). It's not of much interested to anyone outside the state who isn't involved in state politics. For evidence of rarity of use, if we make some searches of The New York Times, we find: 
**"Massachusetts" is mentioned 29 times in the last seven days, or about 1500 times per year
**"Bay State," exact phrase, is mentioned 36 times in the years 2000-2004, or about 6 times per year
**"Beantown" is mentioned 14 times in the years 2000-2004, or about 3 times per year
**"Taxachusetts" is only mentioned 4 times, less than once a year
**Of the four times it is mentioned, two are in the context of its no longer meriting its former moniker; one is former Republican state chair Healey warning that if the Democrats had their way the state might return to being Taxachusetts, and one is a Florida politico saying that Kerry will have to fight the "Taxachusetts" label. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Taxachusetts" 

message: "Massachusetts will be forever known as the birthplace of homosexual marriage. From the Bay State to the Gay State." - Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth http://www.boston.com/news/specials/gay_marriage/articles/2004/05/14/gay_marriage_appeals_move_to_federal_court/ I think the sentence about this name should be reinserted.  Schwael 21:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Bay State again from the Gay State" 

message: I believe that the correct translation is "large hill place." If anybody has any sources proving otherwise, please provide them.--AaronS 23:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The -et is a locative ending. A locative is a marker used in many languages to denote "place where" or "at". The closest translation you can get is "at the big hill." There is no blue or place in there. Whenever you translate you have to make the translation make sense in your language. Thus "big-hill-at" would not be an appropriate translation. You just try and paraphrase the intended meaning. I don't see that "large hill place" adds anything to the ones that are there now. For references I give you sources cited by my reference, which is after all hard to get. My ref is the Bond work cited in the article. He, who is a local historian, in turn cites R.A. Douglass-Lithgow, Dictionary of American Indian Place Names in New England, and John C. Huden, Indian Place Names of New England. Thank you so much for raising the question. Anything in such a visible place ought to be right.Dave 22:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation of "Massachusetts" into English 

message: The history of Massachusetts is long and interesting enough to deserve its own article, I think. -- Beland 07:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion request 

message: The city of Quincy is historically relevant. It is the birthplace of John Adams, John Quincy Adams and John Hancock. Also the two presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams are buried in Quincy. THeir tomb rests in United First Parish Church. 
Quincy is also home to America's first commercial railway - the Granite Railway and the first blast furnace. 
http://www.discoverquincy.com
http://www.ci.quincy.ma.us/ - the official homepage of The City of Quincy --jenlight 16:53, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
:And let's not forget Dunkin' Donuts!  Twin Bird 17:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Who would have ever thought the day would come when they would bake the doughuts centrally and truck them out to the stores? Bill Rosenberg must be rolling over in his grave. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just think of all the morning sleep Fred sacrified. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 22:30, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quincy Massachusetts 

message: In the Massachusetts box, Barnstable isn't on the list of towns, or even cities.  (I'm almost sure it's a town, for the record.) Twin Bird 22:12, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where's Barnstable? 

message: It seems like the current "Early settlement" section is no longer primarily about that, but about the native peoples who initially inhabited Massachusetts.  Not sure how it should be devided up tho... Schwael 20:50, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I see what you mean. I just pruned it down and made a first cut at making organizational sense out of it. I don't see it as too long, really. There is a whole lot of material connected by links and probably ought to be more, as the fledgling United States is right there in Massachusetts Bay Colony. For example there need to be links to the witchcraft incident and some reason why Andros was ousted. There are many much longer articles; for example, see the ones on Charles I and II. As for the natives, you can't separate them from early Massachusetts. I actually had to add a sentence about Thanksgiving! What an appropriate time of year to do that. To talk about settlement and mean only the English is to ask for sensitivity trouble. What, the Indians didn't settle Massachusetts? But I grant you times before the English ought to be covered under the Algonquians. As far as I can see, there is no more than the brief statement as to who was here and where, which seems legitimate. Thank you very much for noticing that the article needs more work. I invite you to solidify your ideas. I do not think we should be too timid about this even though it is a high profile location. Just jump right in. If we go too far wrong the editors will straighten us out.Dave 22:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Pre-Settlement" section? 

message: Is Massachusetts (now that New Jersey has amended its constitution), the only US state ,that leaves it's Governorship vacant, when the elected Governor dies, resigns or is removed from office? the Lieutenant Governor only becoming Acting Governor,Mightberight/wrong 15:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Acting Governor