Talk:List of chronometers on HMS Beagle

Good work

I have to echo User:Ericoides' comment on DYK—brilliantly obscure article, and very well done. This is what Wikipedia is all about. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 19:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Copyedit

I have a couple of problems with the copyedit so far. I'm not sure that [1] hasn't lost the sense that these were two completely different missions. To my mind,[2] chronometers are countable and are thus better described by number than quantity. SpinningSpark 00:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

You're correct - I've changed 'quantity' back to 'number' in the lead. Also, for "...and then to go on to establish..." I've substituted "...then to go onward...". Feel free to correct anything else you find that concerns you. :-) Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 03:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

"...waves, called rollers..." could be read as "wave" is synonymous with "roller". These were clearly waves large compared to the ship, not just any wave. As I am not sure what the exact definition of "roller" is, or even if it is a recognised term, it is probably best just to credit the term to Fitzroy and leave it to the nautical buffs to work out what is meant. The sentence now reads "The ship was hit by three consecutive large waves, called rollers by Fitzroy, in quick succession." SpinningSpark 16:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I was wondering about the correct term, having found nothing on WP I could link it to. Thanks for explaining from the source. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I've never been to sea but I know exactly what "rollers" means in the nautical sense, this sort of dumbing down of language to the lowest common denominator is one of the things about wikipedia that makes me want to scream! --Thefrood (talk) 23:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

<sarc>Yeh well we're not all oceanography experts like yourself, Thefrood. I thought the ship was hit by three gigantic Carmen rollers. Gosh, how dumb am I?</sarc> Baffle gab1978 (talk) 01:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Sarcasm does not justify an unnecessarily wordy exposition of a word that many will know the meaning of, that many others will be able to deduce the meaning of from the context and that the few remaining others that are still baffled as to the meaning of the word can look up in even the most basic of English dictionaries. This is not a technical term, this is not archaic usage nor is it a terribly obscure word only found in the full twenty volume version of the Oxford English Dictionary so please stop insulting the readers intelligence with these unnecessary wordy expositions.

Now just for the record in most respects I think copy-editors do a great job (and are one of the great unsung heroes of wikipedia) and that this is a wonderful article but it would be better if you stopped assuming I and other readers only have the vocabulary of an inerudite twelve year old. --Thefrood (talk) 05:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Baffle, perhaps a simple "The ship was hit by three consecutive rollers in quick succession" and footnote rollers would be better. It certainly makes it easier to read. SpinningSpark 07:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

A better suggestion but I'd still question the need for a footnote. I'm sorry that you have had to suffer the brunt of my frustration but this is the straw that broke the proverbial camels back, once this specific issue is resolved I'll most likely take my wider frustrations to a more suitable forum. --Thefrood (talk) 07:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I have taken "roller" out altogether now. The full OED does not, in fact, have this meaning at all, and the definition in Wiktionary is not quite the same meaning (coastal, not open sea) (although we have the ability to fix that). I did find it in several other dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, Chambers, Collins) but its absence in OED testifies to its rarity. Whether we say waves or rollers is not important, the salient point is that they were huge. I have also added that the Cherokee class was notorious for sinking in just this way. In fact, if the captain had been anyone else but Fitzroy she probably would have and the world would never have heard of Darwin or his theory. Fitzroy saw those waves coming. He saw them coming two years earlier when he had the deck of Beagle raised to protect against just this event. SpinningSpark 08:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

If you like the article, you can support its Featured List nomination, by following the link at the top of the page. SpinningSpark 08:40, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes the Wiktionary definition is the surfers rather than sailors and I must also say that I'm impressed that you can access all 20 volumes plus supplements of the full OED so quickly in order to check the meaning... as to the FL support I strongly suspect that you will receive my endorsement sometime over the weekend ;) --Thefrood (talk) 08:57, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Cost of H4

Since 15 May 2011 there has been a statement that "H4 had cost over £20,000 (inflation adjusted £390,000) to develop. Kendall's K1 cost £500 (now £88,000) and his cheap model, K3, cost £100 (now £15,900)". There is a discrepancy between the cost of H4 at £20,000 and the value "2000" passed through to the {{Inflation}} template, which an IP editor has just corrected to "20000". £20,000 (inflation adjusted £3,870,000) seems very expensive to me compared with the cost of K1, so I wonder, is the correct cost of H4 £20,000 or £2,000? BabelStone (talk) 23:22, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

H4 was groundbreaking, and so had a huge development cost. This was largely the 20,000 prize money paid by the Admiralty. SpinningSpark 00:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. BabelStone (talk) 08:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)