Talk:Syzygy

Multiple Issues Tag

A multiple issues tag/seven day delete was added on 2010-04-11 15:28. The user who added this tag left the following set of criticisms which I address:

This article has had a multiple issues tag on it since November 2009 and since then it has increased in size and continues to have the same issues.

Reviewing the talk history, there is no indication of the multiple issues alleged have ever been brought to the attention of authors in the talk page. There has been no attempt at a discussion to improve the article.

The main section of the article consists entirely of a list of definitions, made redundant by the Wikitionary article and out of Wikipedia's scope since none of the various definitions are expanded upon beyond a single paragraph.

As it would be inappropriate to edit Wikitionary to include these paragraph length references and definitions, which justifies the keeping of the page. The article goes beyond simple dictionary definitions to provide a comprehensive list of the uses of an obscure word, and a complete set of hyperreferences to other Wikipedia articles by which a person can do further research on their own. It is a mischaracterization of the article to imply that the information is outside of Wikipedia's scope. I believe the objection really is that the article is a disambiguation of the term, in which case, the article should be renamed, not deleted.

The rest of the article is an expansive "In Popular Culture" section which is an even longer list of spam, un-cited claims and fancruft [sic] regarding various things of questionable notability.

I agree the In Popular Culture section contains uncited references, however, the person that left this commentary does not substantiate either the allegation of spam or fancraft, and casual review of the section does not reveal the basis for this objection.

Out of the four references, one of them is dictionary.com and one is a primary source. These four make up all the sources for a 14 kilobyte article i.e. the vast majority of statements are unsourced.

Then the solution is to request sources of the article, not delete an article that other users (including myself, and obviously others on the talk page) have found useful.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.186.111 (talk) 22:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, have removed the prod-template and notified the adder. Supersheep (talk) 23:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for paying attention to the ProD.

Honestly I wasn't happy at all about ProDing the article. I found it in Novemember, was appalled by the general mess and tried over five edits to remove at least some of the spam, and tag some unsourced statements et cetera but then I left it, figuring that the sizeable team was probably working on it.

Coming back I found that a lot of the spam had returned, the popular culture section was as horrid as ever and the article had no better sources.

Obviously I recognise the importance of the article it's linked to all over the place, but really, it's terrible. I don't mean any offence by that, but it really is.

Having looked again at the talk page what I would suggest rather than deletion would be blanking the whole page and replacing it with a disambiguation page pointing to separate articles, as has already been suggested, for the specific meanings - someone wanting to learn about planetary alignment or Jungian archetypes isn't going benefit from the sheer size of the article in it's current state.

I really see no reason to keep the Pop Culture section. If it must stick around then trivia like the word being mentioned once in a single line during a couple of musicals or the username of "currently the #4 Free Player on RuneScape" is not helping it's case. Individual articles, however, would certainly benefit from a pop culture section such as one on Planetary Alignment which has had a massive part to play in modern mythology and storytelling.

Like I said, I wasn't happy about deciding to ProD the article but I was so disappointed by it's current state that I couldn't leave it again. Maybe it'll turn into something useful eventually, I'm glad you're so optimistic about it.

--Paul Carpenter (talk) 08:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Could someone add a pronunciation for this? Privong 23:36, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

In American dictionary respelling it's /siz'.i.jē/; In X-SAMPA it's ["sIz.I.dZi]; in IPA it's [ˈsɪz.ɪ.ʤi]. --Damian Yerrick 05:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Or it's the first half of scissors plus the second half of prodigy. Do you want a recording? --Gus N 23:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yea, a recording might be useful on the page. Privong 19:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Origin

I am myself Turkish, and I cannot see how "sezgi" (means sense, perception) has anything to do with syzygy other than "maybe" in their pronounciations and looks! I think that portion should be removed. May-Ur

Additional Uses

Should the fact the the original name of the company Atari was supposed to be Syzygy be added? I'd add it to the Atari page too. Tom 23:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I read that the reason why Atari was used instead of Syzygy was that a roofing company had already taken the name. The article claims that a candle company had already taken the name.--Minster01 (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There is also a Japanese band by this name, who have released two albums under the Tzadik label in america. Their home page is found at http://www.ne.jp/asahi/syzygys/official/eindex.html

Disambiguation?

Is this really a disambiguation page? There are relatively few internal links -- for most uses of "syzygy," the definition is right here on this page. --Dantheox 17:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree something should be done, but I haven't figured out what to propose yet. As it is, though, it is a syzygy of pages, no? I'll be back with more positive suggestions.

John (Jwy) 20:02, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Longest with no anagrams?

I think Zenzizenzizenzic is the ONLY word with 6 z's so can't have any anagrams. I will pull the claim from here for now. A Geek Tragedy 21:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are correct Sir! 66.246.72.108 05:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe that by "anagram", the original claim referred to anagrams using subsets of the original word, which this obviously fails ("zen", "nice", etc.). Maybe the terminology is wrong, but I do believe the claim, that no words can be made from any of the letters of "syzygy" is correct. Will refrain from reverting to await confirmation or refutation. Thanks, Fractalchez (talk) 05:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Reason for popularity

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the longest english word that doesn't contain one of the 5 "standard" (or whatever they're called) vowels? Jjchong 13:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Longest English word without a vowel?

The article states that syzygy is tied with rhythm as the longest English word without a vowel. I don't want to sound too picky, but shouldn't rhythms (with an emphasis on the "s" at the end) be considered the longest word? Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think sygyzy can be pluralized simply by adding an "s" at the end. S@lo 05:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Avoid the Noid

The word syzygy also appears in the executable of Avoid the Noid (noid.exe). It looks like a parameter, but I don't know what it does. Does anyone here know what it does? Calvero2 13:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it enables some cheat codes in the game. Calvero2 12:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

CoCo vs Dragon video game?

[1] describes a "graphical, 3D adventure game" which "borrows some elements from the Star Wars movies." It was written by Scott Cabit and published by Spectral Associates.

The Dragon and Color Computer were very similar: Dragon_computer#Differences_from_the_CoCo

Does anyone know if this be the same game as the one published by Microdeal? ColorfulNumbers 03:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Origin

Syzygia comes from the Greek "syn" (con) and "zygos" (balance). Syzygia (looses the "n" as usual in Greek) means among others arrangement of a pair and AFAIK is not Latin. Derivatives are used for the married couple ("syzygos", both male and female) and extended even to oxes yoked together (hence the reference in the article) often called "ypozygia"(pl.)=oxen under the yoke, expression used for enslaved people or nations, thus linking marriage, oxen and slavery in an imperative manner.Dpser 22:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I've consulted two dutch/latin dictionaries and did not find the word in either. Kleuske (talk) 14:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Syzygy score in Scrabble

The article says that syzygy is the word without vowels that score the most points in Scrabble. (It is already marked with citation needed, though.) I guess this depend on what words are allowed in the game. If scientific names are allowed then the wasp genus zyzzyx should score pretty high too. Does anyone know he rules of Scrabble? :) --Imraith-Nimphais (talk)

According to Scrabble_letter_distributions, S=1, Y=4, X=8, G=2, and Z=10. However, there are only 2 Y's and 1 Z, so some of the letters in syzygy and zyzzyx have to use blanks, worth zero points. Thus

syzygy=(S1)(Y4)(Z10)(Y4)(G2)(Y0)=21 points, the last Y being a blank.

zyzzyx=(Z10)(Y4)(Z0)(Z0)(Y4)(X8)=26 points, the two Z's being blanks.

Therefore, you're correct, so long as zyzzyx is permitted under Scrabble rules (which I can't rule on). --ScottAlanHill (talk) 01:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Planetary Alignment

Although the redirect leads to this article, I believe that planetary alignment should have, if not it's own article, then at least a paragraph; when will the "perfect" allignment be, how rare are they, mathmatics behind it, astronomical influence et cetera. Any thoughts about this? - 212.10.52.184 (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Eclipse or Occultation or Astronomical transit? What astronomical influence do you mean?—RJH (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Plane or Line

At the top of this article it says syzygy is "the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a plane", but later it says that it is along a line. Which is it? Is new/full moon always a state of syzygy, or is it only at eclipses? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.76.206 (talk) 22:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Especially since 3 points are always in a single plane - it should read line. JEH (talk) 18:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Popular culture

• http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=107 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.47.167.178 (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
• http://www.lady.co.uk/people/features/1519-can-you-crack-lewis-carroll-s-syzygies on Lewis Carroll's syzygies in the British magazine "The Lady" --DL5MDA (talk) 06:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Split

I've split almost all of the previous content of this article to Syzygy (astronomy), Syzygy (mathematics), and Syzygy (poetry). See the {{Copied multi}} template at the top of this talk page for full details.

If you want to challenge this action, now's the time! You know, before other editors spend a lot of effort changing incoming links to target the newly split pages. Melchoir (talk) 07:06, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I made some changes before completely seeing your splitting work & comment here. I don't think there is actually any serious disagreement, so let me try to forestall any here with a brief explanation of my three changes. (1) Epirrhematic syzygy is totally unrelated to the other use in poetry; they should not be combined in a single article. (2) I don't really care whether we use the redirect Syzygy (Gnosticism) and don't want to argue over WP:PIPING. What I do want to insist on is that the particular section of Gnosticism "aeon" be linked, as that's a huge article and (while yes, I do know about CTRL-F), I do not think the reader can be expected to find the discussion of syzygies buried in such a massive article w/o a section link. (3) I realize that the techno music usage lacked blue links at Syzygy (disambiguation); now that it has one, I assume the need to include it is clear. Wareh (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good! I think the best outcome for Syzygy (Gnosticism) would be to split Aeon (Gnosticism) from Aeon#In Gnosticism and put the word syzygy in bold at the top of the new article. Melchoir (talk) 22:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

...and done. Melchoir (talk) 00:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

By the way, what would you think about removing the sentence "Syzygy is derived from the Late Latin syzygia, "conjunction", from the Greek σύζυγος (syzygos)."? After all, this information is already present in the Wiktionary entry. Melchoir (talk) 00:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that should be trimmed. The Late Latin does not figure in the etymology of every meaning here, and the definition is also awkward (for example, the cited entries do not use the word "unity," for the good reason that it's generally less accurate and useful than, say, "union." So I will trim this down. Thanks for creating Aeon (Gnosticism). Since it has as much to say about gnostic syzygies as the monster article, linking it [PS: as I see you've done by changing the redirect] will fix has fixed the needle/haystack issue I mentioned. Wareh (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress which affects this page. Please participate at Talk:Syzygy (astronomy) - Requested move and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 01:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Syzygy (astronomy) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)