Is there a word for the Wiki page for the Ship of Theseus paradox?

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The ship comes in

We asked, you answered. Feedback wondered what adjective would best describe the Wikipedia page for the Ship of Theseus paradox. As a reminder, the paradox asks whether it’s the same ship if every single component has been replaced, and the Wiki page for it has been edited so much that nothing of the original remains, making it an exemplar of the thing it describes.

Sifting through the resulting mailbag, we see a great many suggestions, ranging from Tim Moulsley’s “autoparadigm” to Bryn Glover’s “autocausative”.

Martin Bastone was one of many readers who took inspiration from the British comedy Only Fools and Horses, in which the dim-witted road sweeper Trigger gets a medal for saving the council money, thanks to his having used the same broom for 20 years – with the minor caveat that it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles. Martin therefore suggests the Ship of Theseus Wiki page be described as “triggering”.

However, it seems there may be a correct answer. It was identified by Peter Jeffery and Peter Gutfreund (who sounds nice), among others, and it is “autological”. An autological word “expresses a property that it also possesses”, according to Wikipedia. Peter Thomson offers some examples of autological words: “‘noun’ is a noun, ‘sesquipedalian’ is sesquipedalian”.

There is some question as to whether autological can be used to describe only individual words, in which case, we can’t apply it to the entire Wikipedia article. So if “we need a distinct word for articles”, says Philip Penton, “may I propose ‘autobroomian’.”

Mairi McKissock also got the answer, and then went deeper. “Digging into this then led me to the opposite term: heterological (a word that does not describe itself),” she writes. For instance, the word “monosyllabic” is distinctly polysyllabic. This, in turn, led Mairi to another paradox, the Grelling-Nelson paradox. She writes: “Is the word ‘heterological’ heterological? If it is, it describes itself, making it autological. If it is not, it does not describe itself, making it heterological.”

And now Feedback’s head hurts, so let’s switch gears and dive into another section of our mailbox.

Finding a niche

Less of a deluge and more of a steady trickle, the correspondence also continues about niche science-themed tourist attractions. The standard to beat is a park filled with sculptures of foraminifera or a garden devoted solely to mosses.

Andrew Taubman, who volunteers at the Australian Museum, reports that he and his colleagues are hard at work “digitising the vast entomology collection”. Most recently, he helped digitise “signal flies of genus Lamprogaster“. As a benchmark for how obscure these insects are, Lamprogaster doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. Top marks – except that Feedback can’t find an actual exhibit. Likewise, Rosalinda Hardiman’s “curated set of beach pebbles”, gathered from years of open-water swimming, is as yet not open to the public: Rosalinda wonders if she should do this, to which Feedback answers in the affirmative.

Also in Australia, Sari Sommarstrom highlights “the Pooseum in Richmond, Tasmania”. The Pooseum, as readers may have inferred, is devoted to animal droppings. Its website notes that it is “the only one of its kind in Australia”. It goes on to explain: “We like to think of ourselves as poo-ologists, having decided to get to the bottom of the matter. Far from presenting toilet humour [sure about that?], we are on a serious mission to educate visitors about the fascinating world of poo.” Sari says it is “full of fascinating facts as well as humorous”. However, Feedback is concerned that it isn’t really niche, given how universal defecation is.

Finally, we turn to John Blakey, who identifies not one but two obscure attractions. In the town of Hobro, Denmark, there is the Gas Museum. John regrets that he is “yet to visit”, but explains that the museum “concentrates on the fascinating history of domestic gas production and distribution”.

However, it is John’s second attraction that now sets the standard: Northern Jutland’s Kornets Hus or “House of Grain”. He calls it “a celebration of everything to do with corn and other cereal grains”, all in a “purpose-built visitor centre set in the middle of cornfields”.

John says: “This one is so obscure that no one has yet dropped a review on TripAdvisor”. Feedback checked and this is sort of true. TripAdvisor has a page for the museum, which indeed has no reviews, but there is a separate page for the museum’s cafe, which as of mid-May had seven reviews. Make of that what you will.

A priceless chihuahua

Feedback doesn’t want to get into the habit of name-dropping, but this one comes from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit author Jeanette Winterson. Browsing Apple News, Winterson clocked yet another use of dogs as a unit of measurement, this one profoundly unhelpful: “Giant 11,000 carat ruby that weighs as much as a dog”.

Just to drive home how useless this comparison is, English mastiffs can weigh over 100 kilograms, while chihuahuas can be 1 kg. The dog comparison is like saying a building’s height is somewhere between that of a two-storey house and the Burj Khalifa. Further reading reveals that the gemstone weighs 2.2 kg, so very much at the chihuahua end of the dog scale.

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