Talk:Dmitri Mendeleev

Start biography of Dimitri Mendeleev

Start biography of Dimitri Mendeleev. Anthony.Sebastian 02:32, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Usually the name is spelled Dmitri (without i). Here I have a link to Dmitri Mendeleev. --Paul Wormer 05:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, Paul, 'Dmitri' more common than 'Dimitri'. Of three refs I cited so far, two (Morris, Scerri) use 'Dimitri', and the third, something different altogether. Morris also says 'Mendeleyev' more common than 'Mendeleev', but I haven't tried to confirm that.

The best thing to do, change the name of the article to 'Dmitri Mendeleev', include an explanatory note about the transliteration variations. Before doing that I'd like to explore a little further. In the meantime, I'll set up Dmitri Mendeleev, Mendeleyev, and Mendeleev to redirect to the current Dimitri Mendeleev, ultimately undoubtedly doing the name change of the Main Article to Dmitri Mendeleev.

Thanks for calling this to my attention.

BTW, a beautiful scholarly history of the origins of the periodic table you wrote. Anthony.Sebastian 15:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Renamed Dimitri Mendeleev to Dmitri Mendeleev

I did the rename in response to Paul Wormer's pointing out to me that Dimitri Mendeleev's Russian language name more often transliterated Dmitri Mendeleev. Thanks, Paul. Anthony.Sebastian 15:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Record!

I bet the first sentence of the lede is the longest in all of Citizendium. (Having learned Latin and German, I read it without problems, though.)--Paul Wormer 16:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Paul, without overdoing it in a particular work, I write long sentences, sentences referred to as 'cumulative sentences', sentences that start with a base clause, like this sentence's "I write long sentences", adding free modifiers non-exclusively to either the subject or predicate of the base clause, eschewing dependent clauses, the free modifiers adding informational content, each modifier keying on an obvious prior one, each accumulating more and more information as the sentence progresses, each added in anticipation of a curious and attentive reader's questions, the modifiers ordered and re-ordered to ensure a flowing and coherent sentence, new ones added until nothing more seems required to accumulate information relevant to the base clause: I write long sentences.

I do not consider the lede sentence especially long, as cumulative sentences go in the modern literature. Anthony.Sebastian 21:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice font

Seen in the blockquote: Comic Sans MS, Trebuchet MS, Consolas. Thanks for digging that one out! --Daniel Mietchen 17:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

10-q, & you're welcome. Anthony.Sebastian 20:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding lede paragraph

Ro, just wondering how your thinking went when you segmented my long, but in my judgment, coherently cumulatively informative lede sentence, into three sentences. Not objecting, just collecting rationales, as I find my cumulative sentences, built on successive free modifiers rather than clauses of various types, often inspire others to break them up. Also, I eschew weak verbs like 'is' and 'was', and the passive voice, whenever I can make an agent do the action with a stronger verb, trying to enliven the sentence. You give the reader full stops, so she has time to digest; I let the movie play, let her replay it if she needs to — repetitio mater memoriae.

See my response to Paul Wormer in section above, 'Record!'. Cheers! —Anthony.Sebastian 03:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Rationale, moi? No problem, as you like it. I'm sure you'd get Proust's vote. Ro Thorpe 14:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Jonah Lehrer, scholar and neuroscience writer, argues that Proust knew his neuroscience, if mostly unconsciously. But Proust never really mastered the cumulative sentence. I need to check on Victor Hugo and Isaiah Berlin. Cheers! —Anthony.Sebastian 14:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)