Talk:Gathland State Park

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An entry from Gathland State Park appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 9, 2007.

[edit] "Other" memorials

One is plain old building, and one is a tree. This is an actual monument and, as far as I can see, still the only one in the world. Perhaps "memorial" needs to be changed to "monument" to avoid confusion; I could paint my car into a memorial for fallen reporters but that doesn't make it a monument. Kafziel ^Talk 13:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wait... on second look, it already says monument. So where's the confusion? Surely Bwithh is not trying to compare the Overseas Press Club with the Washington Monument or the Taj Mahal? Kafziel ^Talk 13:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

There's no confusion. The dictionary definition of "monument" includes 1) buildings (the Memorial Press Center building was dedicated by President Eisenhower as a living memorial to fallen journalists) and 2) memorial stone markers (the memorial in Arlington is more than a tree - there's a stone marker) e.g. see

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/monument "1. A structure, such as a building or sculpture, erected as a memorial. 2. An inscribed marker placed at a grave; a tombstone."

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/monument "a memorial stone or a building erected in remembrance of a person or event"

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monument "something erected in memory of a person, event, etc., as a building, pillar, or statue"; "a written tribute to a person, esp. a posthumous one."

(A monument can even be just a designated location without a special artificial structure, so a special tree would count too. Here's an example of this notion being used in the policy of a major city[1]) Bwithh 18:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If you have a better way to differentiate them than what I've done already, I'm all ears. They're quite obviously not on the same level; one is a tree, one is a private building, one is a giant monument in a state park maintained by the National Park Service. (By the way, the stone at Arlington is not technically part of the memorial; it's just a place to put the explanation without nailing it to the tree itself.) Perhaps the difference is intent; the arch was built expressly as a monument to journalists, while the tree and the building were already there and were later dedicated as memorials. All three of your dictionary definitions state that a monument is something erected for the purpose of memorial; neither the tree nor the building were originally erected for such a purpose.

On another note, to say that either of those other ones is "prominent" is pretty hopelessly pov. Kafziel ^Talk 18:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)