Talk:Human leg

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[edit] Image

A photo of a woman's legs are not appropriate for this article. Looks rather silly. Changed to drawing from 1918 Gray's Anatomy. Why not?

--Is it offensive? I think not. Get a life; stop complaining about such inconsequentialities.

Agreed. The legs are human legs, they are appropriate for the article. If they happend to be attractive legs, then that's incidental. This argument has no merit. Lengis 05:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

--I changed the caption to "shaved women's legs," because they are a varient of real legs. I just like obvious articles like this one. ---The leg is a bit too showy... we're talkin' bout legs, not sex appeal... why not find a picture that is much more functional, like a cross country runner? also, there's nothing about the evolution of humans being able to walk great distances at a steady pace. I don't know much about that, but someone must (in support or refusal of)!

The picture looks kind of ridiculus. I agree with a more functional picture that shows legs in action. It's not that the one now is offensive or inappropriate, it just looks silly. CerealBabyMilk 00:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

---"offensive"? "They happen to be"? Might want to read over what you guys say before submitting. This is not about being "offensive" (that word again!), or that "they're legs, it's fine." And this didn't "happen" to be attractive legs, *someone* put it there. I know wikipedia is not censored, but this is like a "G" article, so there's no reason to have a "PG-13" picture. The whole article is fine for even young kids, but i'm sure many parents won't agree that the picture is. My opinion, thus, is that it should have a picture that wasn't focused on attractive legs for a sensual picture. This is an article on anatomy, so fine, bare legs is ok, but not like this. Just have something else, like a simple, front-view picture of someone simply standng. Or is it too hard to not make everything sexual? So meh, just posing that thought.

[edit] leg joke

I'm feeling at the moment unaccountably protective of the history of talk pages, so i'm striking this rather than deleting it as vandalism or something:

Ben Curtis supposes that legs that go all the way up are those that make one think about the part that is located all the way up.
Voice Over: Legs that go all the way up == Legs that are great all the way to the top. Unlike some people who have great calves or thighs. These legs are just all around great.
  • rimshot*

[edit] Detailed anatomy

At [an early stage of this article] will be found much detail, probably from 1911 EB, that probably could be parcelled out among the various presently red-linked articles for the bones and muscles (and i imagine ligaments and tendons, which IMO also deserve attention) to good advantage. --Jerzy(t) 17:02, 2004 Jun 13 (UTC)

[edit] Leg vs Upper limb

This article should describe only the leg - as anatomists understand the term, as there is another article "Upper limb". The contents should not be duplicated. --Eleassar777 20:09, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense. For starters, Upper limb was an article that (inadequately) describes the human arm. (It should, BTW, be a redirect (see my next 'graph), probably as i just converted it, to Arm, tho before treating that as final, consideration should be given to whether there is anything in any revision of it that deserves preservation in Arm, and thus preservation of its history by means of merging them (which, note well, requires an admin, since it does not refer to the problematic practice of cutting and pasting). My action of converting it to a redirect is reversible, but it should stop immediately any editing there: that is desirable since the substantial Arm article is the one that should be editted, and moved (renamed) to whatever name is eventually deemed best, since at best it might require avoidable effort to merge it into the article currently called "Arm", and at worst it would duplicate effort alreadly expened on Arm without any benefit to the project.)
Even more fundamentally, articles are named according to common usage, not the technical language suitable to specialists. (That technical language should be discussed in the article, but to the extent it is compatible with clarity and precision, discussed using common language.)
The Lower limb article is also unsuitable for serving the role that this talk page's article currently does, because they have the same qualities with respect to each other as do Upper limb and Arm; i have also converted Lower limb to a redir to Human leg on the same reasoning and with the same qualifications.
And BTW, a Human lower leg or Calf or Calf (anatomy) article, covering what i assume is meant by the cryptic reference above to
leg - as anatomists understand the term
would need evidence of serving some purpose, bcz the human leg is mainly of interest to non-specialists as an integrated unit, and much of the interest is in structures that cross the knee; it's not clear what there is to say about the calf that wouldn't still need to be duplicated in a (perhaps yet to be improved) article with the present scope of Human leg.
--Jerzy (t) 16:30, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

I just wish to apologize for having written "upper limb" when in fact I wanted to write "lower limb". As you have provided good reasoning and also because I don't have much time, I won't argue the change. --Eleassar777 21:40, 1 May 2005 (UTC)


I feel that lower limb should not be merged with leg. If you are going to distinguish between leg in anatomical terms and in common language terms, you MUST do the same with lower limb. Lower limb is not the leg and should have its separate page. PhatRita 4 July 2005 19:28 (UTC)
I was startled to come across this page and learn that, despite a higher education and many years as a native speaker of the English language, I did not know the meaning of the word "leg". Curious, I consulted an anatomy guide, Atlas of Human Anatomy, from Manchester University Department of Anatomy, 1985, ISBN 0-397-58284-6. The text says:
"The lower limb, which supports the body during standing and locomotion, consists of three parts linked by hinge joints at the knee and ankle. The buttock and thigh, with the enclosed femur, articulate with the pelvic girdle at the multiaxial hip joint; the leg, including the tibia and fibula, lies in an intermediate position; and the foot, with its tarsals, metatarsals and phalanges, forms the most distal part."
Horse
Horse
Clear and authoritative — and totally at odds with common usage. For example, the [Merriam-Webster Online] definition begins
"1 : a limb of an animal used especially for supporting the body and for walking: as a (1) : one of the paired vertebrate limbs that in bipeds extend from the top of the thigh to the foot (2) : the part of such a limb between the knee and foot b : the back half of a hindquarter of a meat animal c : one of the rather generalized segmental appendages of an arthropod used in walking and crawling"
Notice that the anatomical sense is not the first; also, the buttock is excluded from the common sense, but it's not entirely clear if the foot should be included. (Other dictionaries state the ambiguity.) The [Online Etymology Dictionary] says the Old Norse term replaced the Old English "shank". Interesting, but useless for this discussion. In a larger context, notice that most of the visible length of a horse's hind limb is below the knee. Perhaps this common arrangement explains the anatomists' language.
Conclusion: A main "leg" page must be about the anatomical lower limb, with a discussion for disambiguation. If necessary, a separate page could describe "leg (human anatomy)".

[edit] Rewrite

I'd like to nearly rewrite this article. I started out rewriting the lead section. But I guess I want to talk it over from here.

The article should cover anatomy, obviously, but there are a lot of other aspects. An article on fingernails, for instance, would cover the sociology and psychology of fingernails, their history, uses, mentions in literature, etc. That's hard to do for "leg", though, since the subject is so broad. What do legs represent to humans? How do legs affect humans? What are the common uses? This is so broad as to be nearly impossible. I tried to cover that in the lead section a little bit, but I'm not sure what to do there.

About anatomy, it's easier, but it shouldn't just be lists, as it is now. It ought to be in paragraph form. How should we organize it? Should it be bones, then muscles, then blood flow and other aspects? Or should it be ankles, then calves, the knees, then thighs? I would prefer the latter, I think, with both bones and muscled incorporated into each section.

So sections of ankle, calf, knee, and thigh? Does that sound right?

Note also that there is a separate article for Leg (anatomy). Should these be merged? If not, how should the content be divided? Quadell 19:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


CNEMIS (nee'mis) - The leg from the knee to the ankle.

This article should perhaps lose some of the anotomical information, in favor of a link to the leg anatomy article. I think that the sexual and psycological nature of the leg should be more prominant. The only mention of anything like this is that some women like to shave thier legs, which dosn't adress the huge cultural impact the female leg has had - in North America and Europe, anyway. What about the pin-up girls of the 1950's? What about the tight stalkings of the playboy bunnies? There is so much more this article could cover.--Dark Green 00:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sexual Nature

Should there be something about the possible sexual nature of female legs?

Yes, there should, along with any other cultural qualities. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 01:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I absolutly agree. Female legs are far too important and should have their own section. We should add something about cultural impact, as well as leg fetishism.

[edit] Sleep

when ur leg falls asleep how do u make it stop hurting —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.218.17.5 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)