Talk:Talent (measurement)

message: The word comes from the Ancient Greek for carrying, since it was roughly the amount of weight that a soldier could march with on his back.  (Cf. Roman weights.)
American Heritage Dictionary gives the talentum < τάλαντον etymology, and LSJ defines τάλαντον as "scale, balance." I don't know where this carrying business came from; obviously the ideas are related, but it seems to have meant simply "a thing that is weighted," and then "a weight" used by a merchant or banker, and then transitively an amount of money equivalent to that weight in gold or whatever. LSJ says:  in post-Hom[eric] writers, the τάλαντον was both a commercial weight (differing in different systems), and also the sum of money represented by the corresponding weight of gold or silver. -leigh (φθόγγος) 23:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted because unsourced

message: I've renamed this article talent (measurement) instead of talent (weight), because it's both a weight and monetary measurement, and to call it talent (weight) almost implies that the article should be split so that there's a second article called talent (monetary), and this would unecessarily create two stubs instead of a single decent sized article.  Ultratone85 15:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Renamed

message: It's because of unreferenced, unsourced and speculative articles like this that Wikipedia will never be academically respected.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.184.30.135 (talk) 09:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So instead of being an asshole about it why don't you help out? ~MDD4696 04:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

text: the history of scholarship is the hilarious story of "respected academics" going off on unreferenced, unsourced and speculative flights of fancy and passing off the results as "knowledge". The great gift of wikipedia to the world is its fostering a critical sense among millions of readers. We need bad articles. Jagdfeld (talk) 11:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing

message: What is that short for? Jagdfeld (talk) 11:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Typo of i.e. —Centrx→talk • 01:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: di.e.

message: This page , in the very last sentence, states that Basil II accumulated 200,000 lbs. and not 200,000 talents of gold.  Just in case someone finds out what is correct they can fix the other article as well. ChiefoftheChiss  —Preceding comment was added at 05:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Conflict between wikipedia articles

message: Wikipedia is a comprehensive encyclopedia.  Having one sentence in an article on the measure talent which reflects its modern meaning (This parable is the origin of the sense of the word "talent" meaning "gift or skill" as used in English and other languages. ) is not only unproblematic - it is a requirement of a comprehensive encyclopedia.  Repeated deletions of this essential, notable, and verifiable fact amount to edit warring.  Please read Wikipedia:COMPREHENSIVE.μηδείς (talk) 20:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  repeated deletion of modern meaning of word 

message: I don't know how to move the line. Sorry for any aggravation. I couldn't even find how to move the sentence. I'm new to wiki. If you could help me to move it, I'm fine with you getting credit for it Medeis. Can you help? I'm willing to compromise. T Cone3  —Preceding unsigned comment added by T Cone3 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I think I see what you are at.  I have typed a response on your talk page.  Let me know there if I understand you correctly.μηδείς (talk) 01:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern Definition would be better suited for actual "Talent" page 

message: This article should probably describe talents as a unit of measurement of money.  As I understand it, a talent as a measure of currency is the price of a talent (in weight) of some precious metal.  57 pounds of silver is worth about $23,883.  Seventy-one pounds of silver are worth about $29,749.  Eighty pounds of silver are worth about $33,520.  But if the talents were gold, then the value could be between $496,000 and $1,900,000 a not insubstantial amount of money!
Bwrs (talk) 02:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Money 

message: The article claims that a talent is roughly the weight of water which fits on an amphora quadrantal (one cubic pes), and also that it corresponds to 100 Roman librae.  However, considering the "accepted values" of 0.296 kg and 0.3289 kg for the pes and libra, respectively, in Ancient Roman units of measurement and the conventional 1000 kg/m3 density of water, one cubic pes comes up to only 79.1 librae, quite a bit short of the 100 librae claimed in the article.  Can the source for the assertion back up its claim, or at least give us the values of the libra and pes which it uses? --Wtrmute (talk) 01:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman Talent and Amphora 

message: According to De Melo (Loeb Plautus vol 1, p. lxxxi/ii) there was also a Southern Italian talent which was lighter than the Attic talent, hence Talentum Magnum is used to specify an Attic talent. Vince Calegon 12:49, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Talents 

message: I've removed the reference to unitconversion.org, since it's apparently a copy (without attribution) of an older version of this very article. Compare its 2007 edition, , with the 2006 edition of this article, . FNAS (talk) 08:36, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  unitconversion.org 

message: The wp mina article says around 2100 bce, Ur III time, a mina is the weight of 60 shekels and also 1/60 a talent. A talent is then 60 mina and 3600 shekels, not 360.  I will correct that in this article. Partridgefoot (talk) 03:11, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talent, mina, shekel relative values