title: Prostitution in India

text: Goa was a colony in Portuguese India set up in the early 16th century, and this Portuguese stronghold contained a community of Portuguese slaves. During the late 16th and 17th centuries the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves resulted in traders from the Portuguese Empire and their captive "lascar" crew members from South Asia bringing Japanese slaves to Goa. These were usually young Japanese women and girls brought or captured from Japan as sexual slaves.


title: Prostitution in India

text: The culture of the performing art of "nautch", an alluring style of popular dance, rose to prominence during the later period of Mughal Empire and the rule of the British East India Company. During the period of Company rule (and after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the direct administration of the British Crown), British military elements established and maintained brothels across the Indian subcontinent. The prostitutes who worked in such brothels were recruited from rural Indian families and paid directly by the British authoriites. The red-light districts of cities such as Mumbai developed at this time. The governments of many Indian princely states had regulated prostitution in India prior to the 1860s. The British Raj enacted the Cantonment Act of 1864 to regulate prostitution in colonial India as a matter of accepting a necessary evil. The Cantonment Acts regulated and structured prostitution in the British military bases which provided for about twelve to fifteen Indian women kept in brothels called "chaklas" for each regiment of thousand British soldiers. They were licensed by military officials and were allowed to consort with soldiers only. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of women and girls from continental Europe and Japan were trafficked into British India, where they worked as prostitutes servicing British soldiers and local Indian men.


title: Prostitution in India

text: According to Priti Patkar, a Maharashtra-based social activist working with sex workers in the state, many sex workers were forced to take loans from private lenders at high interest rates during the first wave of the Covid pandemic. “We conducted a survey during the first wave which revealed sex workers were taking loans to survive. For their daily meals, they were entirely dependent on donations. We have not conducted any such survey during the second wave, but we have heard the same thing has happened this time, too,” said Patkar, who leads the NGO, Prerana.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Government organisations like MDACS (Maharashtra District AIDS Control Society) have played a very prominent role in generating awareness on HIV/AIDS, through the assistance in providing free literature and organising street campaigns. There are several NGOs that work to prevent the spread of STI/STDs in the community. NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation), a government agency leads these NGOs. The Durbar Mahila Sumanwua Committee is a sex-workers' union based in Sonagachi, Kolkata, which has 65,000 members. They advocate for labour rights for sex workers, and they also fight against trafficking.


title: Prostitution in India

text: There were an estimated two million female sex workers in the country in 1997. In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development reported the presence of over 3 million female sex workers in India, with 35.47 percent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years. The number of prostitutes rose by 50% between 1997 and 2004.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Brothels are illegal "de jure" but in practice are restricted to certain areas of any given town. Though the profession does not have official sanction, little effort is made to eradicate or impede it.


title: Prostitution in India

text: India's largest and best-known red-light districts are Sonagachi in Kolkata, Majestic in Bangalore, Reshampura in Gwalior, Kamathipura, Sonapur in Mumbai and G. B. Road in New Delhi, that host thousands of sex workers. Earlier, there were centres such as Naqqasa Bazaar in Saharanpur, Chaturbhuj Sthan in Muzaffarpur, Lalpur, Maruadih in Varanasi, Meerganj in Allahabad, Kalinganj in Azamgarh and Kabadi bazar of Meerut.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Much new knowledge on sex work in India came from the first major survey, in April 2011. This was performed by the Centre for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalisation (CASAM), which is part of SANGRAM, a major NGO that deals with sex workers.


title: Prostitution in India

text: The law is vague on prostitution itself. The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as The Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). According to this law, prostitutes can practise their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. A BBC article, however, mentions that prostitution is illegal in India; the Indian law does not refer to the practice of selling one's own sexual service as "prostitution". Clients can be punished for sexual activity in proximity to a public place. Organised prostitution (brothels, prostitution rings, pimping, etc.) is illegal. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman (male prostitution is not recognised in any law in India) can use her body in exchange for material benefit. In particular, the law forbids a sex worker to carry on her profession within 200 yards of a public place. Unlike as is the case with other professions, sex workers are not protected under normal labour laws, but they possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire, and they possess all the rights of other citizens.


title: Prostitution in India

text: In practice SITA is not commonly used. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) which predates the SITA is often used to charge sex workers with vague crimes such as "public indecency" or being a "public nuisance" without explicitly defining what these consist of. In 1986 the old law was amended as the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or ITPA. Attempts to amend this to criminalise clients have been opposed by the Health Ministry, and has encountered considerable opposition.


title: Prostitution in India

text: In a positive development in the improvement of the lives of female sex workers in Calcutta, a state-owned insurance company has provided life insurance to 250 individuals.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Over the years, India saw a growing mandate to legalise prostitution, to avoid exploitation of sex workers and their children by middlemen and in the wake of a growing HIV/AIDS menace.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Supreme Court of India; on May 19, 2022, upheld that everyone, including sex workers are guaranteed the right to dignity and life under Article 21 of Constitution of India. Thus, sex workers can not be harassed and arrested legally. Brothel related practices still remain illegal.


title: Prostitution in India

text: The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, or ITPA, also called the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) is a 1986 amendment of legislation passed in 1956 as a result of the signing by India of the United Nations' declaration in 1950 in New York on the suppression of trafficking. The act, then called the All India Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA), was amended to the current law. The laws were intended as a means of limiting and eventually abolishing prostitution in India by gradually criminalising various aspects of sex work. The main points of the PITA are as follows:


title: Prostitution in India

text: Public place in context of this law includes places of public religious worship, educational institutions, hostels, hospitals etc. A "notified area" is a place which is declared to be "prostitution-free" by the state government under the PITA. Brothel in context of this law, is a place which has two or more sex workers (2a). Prostitution itself is not an offence under this law, but soliciting, brothels, madams and pimps are illegal.


title: Prostitution in India

text: In 2006 the Ministry of Women and Child Development put forward a bill aimed at reducing human trafficking. The bill proposed criminalising the clients of trafficked prostitutes. However, it stalled during the legislative process, and legislation against human trafficking was subsequently effected by amendments to the Indian Penal Code.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Clauses in the ITPA relating to living off the earnings of a sex-worker are being challenged in court, together with criminalisation of brothels, prostitution around a notified public place, soliciting and the power given to a magistrate to evict sex-workers from their home and forbidding their re-entry. Other groups are lobbying parliament for amendments to the law.


title: Prostitution in India

text: In 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that prostitution should be legalised and convened a panel to consider amending the law. In 2011 the Supreme Court held that "right to live with dignity" is a Constitutional right and issued an order relating to "creating conditions conducive for sex workers to work with dignity". The court directed the Central Government, States and Union Territories to carry out a survey to determine the number of sex workers in the country willing to be rehabilitated.


title: Prostitution in India

text: However, in 2012 the Central Government made a plea to the Supreme Court arguing that sex workers should not be allowed to pursue their trade under the constitutional "right to live with dignity". Government counsel contended that any such endorsement by the court would be ultra vires of ITPA, which totally bans prostitution. Opposing counsel submitted that the Act only prohibited brothel activities and punitive action against pimps. The Supreme Court agreed to examine the plea.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Most of the research done by the development organisation Sanlaap indicates that the majority of sex workers in India work as prostitutes due to lacking resources to support themselves or their children. Most do not choose this profession but out of necessity, often after the breakup of a marriage or after being disowned and thrown out of their homes by their families. The children of sex workers are much more likely to get involved in this kind of work as well. A survey completed in 1988 by the All Bengal Women's Union interviewed a random sample of 160 sex workers in Calcutta: Of those, 23 claimed that they had come of their own accord, whereas the remaining 137 women claimed to have been introduced into the sex trade by agents. The breakdown was as follows:


title: Prostitution in India

text: The breakdown of the agents by sex were as follows: 76% of the agents were female and 24% were males. Over 80% of the agents bring young women into the profession were known people and not traffickers: neighbours, relatives, etc.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Also prevalent in parts of Bengal is the Chukri System, whereby a female is coerced into prostitution to pay off debts, as a form of bonded labour. In this system, the prostitute generally works without pay for one year or longer to repay a supposed debt to the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses. In India, the Government's "central sponsored scheme" provides financial or in-kind grants to released bonded labourers and their family members, the report noted, adding over 2,850,000 people have benefited to date. Almost 5,000 prosecutions have been recorded so far under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Some women and girls are by tradition born into prostitution to support the family. The Bachara Tribe, for example, follow this tradition with eldest daughters often expected to be prostitutes.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Over 40% of 484 prostituted girls rescued during major raids of brothels in Mumbai in 1996 were from Nepal. In India one estimate calculated that as many as 200,000 Nepalese girls, many under the age of 14, were sold into sexual slavery during the 1990s.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta) have the country's largest brothel based sex industry, with over 100,000 sex workers in Mumbai. It is estimated that HIV among prostitutes have largely fallen, in last decade.


title: Prostitution in India

text: A positive outcome of a prevention programme among prostitutes can be found in Sonagachi, a red-light district in Kolkata. The education programme targeted about 5,000 female prostitutes. A team of two peer workers carried out outreach activities including education, condom promotion and follow-up of STI cases. When the project was launched in 1992, 27% of sex workers reported condom use. By 1995 this had risen to 82%, and in 2001 it was 86%.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Reaching women who are working in brothels has proven to be quite difficult due to the sheltered and secluded nature of the work, where pimps, Mashis, and brothel-keepers often control access to the women and prevent their access to education, resulting in a low to modest literacy rate for many sex workers.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Not only HIV but other infection diseases have been decreased, examined data from 868 prevention projects—serving about 500,000 female sex workers—implemented between 1995 and 2008. The research found that reaching sex workers through prevention programs decreased HIV and syphilis infection rates among young pregnant women tested routinely at government prenatal health clinics.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Women and girls from China, Arab countries, Japan, the former Soviet Republics, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and from other origins have been noted as working as prostitutes in India.


title: Prostitution in India

text: In 2015, ten Thai women were arrested in India on prostitution charges for allegedly running two brothels masquerading as massage parlours.


title: Prostitution in India

text: India is a source, destination, and transit country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Most of India's trafficking problem is internal, and those from the most disadvantaged social strata—economically, members of tribal communities—are most vulnerable. Thousands of unregulated work placement agencies reportedly lure adults and children under false promises of employment into sex trafficking.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Experts estimate millions of women and children are victims of sex trafficking in India. Traffickers use false promises of employment or arrange sham marriages within India or Gulf states and subject women and girls to sex trafficking. In addition to traditional red light districts, women and children increasingly endure sex trafficking in small hotels, vehicles, huts, and private residences. Traffickers increasingly use websites, mobile applications, and online money transfers to facilitate commercial sex. Children continue to be subjected to sex trafficking in religious pilgrimage centers and by foreign travelers in tourist destinations. Many women and girls, predominately from Nepal and Bangladesh, and from Central Asia, Africa, and Asia, including Rohingya and other minority populations from Burma, are subjected to sex trafficking in India. Prime destinations for both Indian and foreign female trafficking victims include Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Hyderabad, and along the India-Nepal border; Nepali women and girls are increasingly subjected to sex trafficking in Assam, and other cities such as Nagpur and Pune. Some corrupt law enforcement officers protect suspected traffickers and brothel owners from law enforcement efforts, take bribes from sex trafficking establishments and sexual services from victims, and tip off sex traffickers to impede rescue efforts. Some Nepali, Bangladeshi, Afghan, and Iranian women and girls are subjected to both labor and sex trafficking in major Indian cities. Following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, Nepali women who transit through India are increasingly subjected to trafficking in the Middle East and Africa.


title: Prostitution in India

text: The United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ranks India as a 'Tier 2' country.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Prostitution has been a theme in Indian literature and arts for centuries. "Mrichakatika", a ten-act Sanskrit play, was written by Śhudraka in the 2nd century BC, and tells the story of a famous courtesan, Vasantsena. It was made into "Utsav", a 1984 Hindi film. Amrapali (Ambapali), the legendary nagarvadhu, or royal courtesan of the Kingdom of Vaishali, famously became an enlightened Buddhist monk later in her life - a story retold in a Hindi film, "Amrapali" (1966).


title: Prostitution in India

text: The tawaif, or elite courtesan in the Mughal era, has been a theme of a number of films, including "Pakeezah" (1972), "Umrao Jaan" (1981), "Tawaif" (1985), "" (1996) and "Umrao Jaan" (2006). Other movies depicting lives of prostitutes and dancing girls are "Sharaabi" (1984), "Amar Prem" (1972), "Mausam" (1975) "Mandi" (1983), "Devdas" (2002), "Chandni Bar" (2001), "Chameli" (2003), "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Sadak" (2007), "Dev D" (2009), "B.A. Pass" (2013), "Thira" (2013) and "Begum Jaan" (2017).


title: Prostitution in India

text: Various fictional films have featured the subject of prostitution in India, including "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), "Chaarfutiya Chhokare" (2014), "Manoranjan" (1974), "Soothradharan" (2001)", Calcutta News" (2008), "Lakshmi" (2014), Love Sonia (2018), Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) among others.


title: Prostitution in India

text: "Born into Brothels", a 2004 American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2004.


title: Prostitution in India

text: Delhi-based woman film maker Shohini Ghosh made a documentary film "Tales of the Night Fairies" in 2002, interviewing five sex workers who are activists of the DMSC sex-worker union in Kolkata. DMSC fights against trafficking and advocates for labour rights for sex-workers.


title: Comma

text: The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark () in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, but inclined from the vertical. Other fonts give it the appearance of a miniature filled-in figure on the baseline.


title: Comma

text: The comma is used in many contexts and languages, mainly to separate parts of a sentence such as clauses, and items in lists mainly when there are three or more items listed. The word "comma" comes from the Greek (), which originally meant a cut-off piece, specifically in grammar, a short clause.


title: Comma

text: A comma-shaped mark is used as a diacritic in several writing systems and is considered distinct from the cedilla. In Byzantine and modern copies of Ancient Greek, the "rough" and "smooth breathings" () appear above the letter. In Latvian, Romanian, and Livonian, the comma diacritic appears below the letter, as in .


title: Comma

text: In the 3rd century BC, Aristophanes of Byzantium invented a system of single dots () at varying levels, which separated verses and indicated the amount of breath needed to complete each fragment of the text when reading aloud. The different lengths were signified by a dot at the bottom, middle, or top of the line. For a short passage, a in the form of a dot was placed mid-level. This is the origin of the concept of a comma, although the name came to be used for the mark itself instead of the clause it separated.


title: Comma

text: The mark used today is descended from a , a diagonal slash known as , used from the 13th to 17th centuries to represent a pause. The modern comma was first used by Aldus Manutius.


title: Comma

text: In general, the comma shows that the words immediately before the comma are less closely or exclusively linked grammatically to those immediately after the comma than they might be otherwise. The comma performs a number of functions in English writing. It is used in generally similar ways in other languages, particularly European ones, although the rules on comma usage – and their rigidity – vary from language to language.


title: Comma

text: Commas are placed between items in lists, as in "They own a cat, a dog, two rabbits, and seven mice."


title: Comma

text: Whether the final conjunction, most frequently "and", should be preceded by a comma, called the "serial comma", is one of the most disputed linguistic or stylistic questions in English.


title: Comma

text: The serial comma is used much more often, usually routinely, in the United States. A majority of American style guides mandate its use, including "The Chicago Manual of Style", Strunk and White's classic "The Elements of Style", and the "U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual". Conversely, the "AP Stylebook" for journalistic writing advises against it.


title: Comma

text: The serial comma is also known as the Oxford comma, Harvard comma, or series comma. Although less common in British English, its usage occurs within both American and British English. It is called the Oxford comma because of its long history of use by Oxford University Press.


title: Comma

text: According to "New Hart's Rules", "house style will dictate" whether to use the serial comma. "The general rule is that one style or the other should be used consistently." No association with region or dialect is suggested, other than that its use has been strongly advocated by Oxford University Press. Its use is preferred by Fowler's "Modern English Usage". It is recommended by the United States Government Printing Office, Harvard University Press, and the classic "Elements of Style" of Strunk and White.


title: Comma

text: As a rule of thumb, "The Guardian Style Guide" suggests that straightforward lists ("he ate ham, eggs and chips") do not need a comma before the final "and", but sometimes it can help the reader ("he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea"). "The Chicago Manual of Style" and other academic writing guides require the serial comma: all lists must have a comma before the "and" prefacing the last item in a series .


title: Comma

text: If the individual items of a list are long, complex, affixed with description, or themselves contain commas, semicolons may be preferred as separators, and the list may be introduced with a colon.


title: Comma

text: In news headlines, a comma might replace the word "and", even if there are only two items, in order to save space, as in this headline from Reuters:


title: Comma

text: Commas are often used to separate clauses. In English, a comma is used to separate a dependent clause from the independent clause if the dependent clause comes first: "After I fed the cat, I brushed my clothes." (Compare this with "I brushed my clothes after I fed the cat.") A relative clause takes commas if it is non-restrictive, as in "I cut down all the trees, which were over six feet tall." (Without the comma, this would mean that only the trees more than six feet tall were cut down.) Some style guides prescribe that two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction ("for", "and", "nor", "but", "or", "yet", "so") must be separated by a comma placed before the conjunction. In the following sentences, where the second clause is independent (because it can stand alone as a sentence), the comma is considered by those guides to be necessary:


title: Comma

text: In the following sentences, where the second half of the sentence is a dependent clause (because it does not contain an explicit subject), those guides prescribe that the comma be omitted:


title: Comma

text: However, such guides permit the comma to be omitted if the second independent clause is very short, typically when the second independent clause is an imperative, as in:


title: Comma

text: The above guidance is not universally accepted or applied. Long coordinate clauses are nonetheless usually separated by commas:


title: Comma

text: In some languages, such as German and Polish, stricter rules apply on comma use between clauses, with dependent clauses always being set off with commas, and commas being generally proscribed before certain coordinating conjunctions.


title: Comma

text: The joining of two independent sentences with a comma and no conjunction (as in ""It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark."") is known as a "comma splice" and is sometimes considered an error in English; in most cases a semicolon should be used instead. A comma splice should not be confused, though, with the literary device called "asyndeton", in which coordinating conjunctions are purposely omitted for a specific stylistic effect.


title: Comma

text: A much debated comma is the one in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says ""A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."" but ratified by several states as ""A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."" which has caused much debate on its interpretation.


title: Comma

text: Commas are always used to set off certain adverbs at the beginning of a sentence, including "however", "in fact", "therefore", "nevertheless", "moreover", "furthermore", and "still".


title: Comma

text: If these adverbs appear in the middle of a sentence, they are followed and preceded by a comma. As in the second of the two examples below, if a semicolon separates the two sentences and the second sentence starts with an adverb, this adverb is preceded by a semicolon and followed by a comma.


title: Comma

text: Using commas to offset certain adverbs is optional, including "then", "so", "yet", "instead", and "too" (meaning "also").


title: Comma

text: Commas are often used to enclose parenthetical words and phrases within a sentence (i.e., information that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence). Such phrases are both preceded and followed by a comma, unless that would result in a doubling of punctuation marks or the parenthetical is at the start or end of the sentence. The following are examples of types of parenthetical phrases:


title: Comma

text: A comma is used to separate "coordinate adjectives" (i.e., adjectives that directly and equally modify the following noun). Adjectives are considered coordinate if the meaning would be the same if their order were reversed or if "and" were placed between them. For example:


title: Comma

text: Some writers precede quoted material that is the grammatical object of an active verb of speaking or writing with a comma, as in "Mr. Kershner says, "You should know how to use a comma."" Quotations that follow and support an assertion are often preceded by a colon rather than a comma.


title: Comma

text: Other writers do not put a comma before quotations unless one would occur anyway. Thus they would write "Mr. Kershner says "You should know how to use a comma.""


title: Comma

text: When a date is written as a month followed by a day followed by a year, a comma separates the day from the year: December 19, 1941. This style is common in American English. The comma is used to avoid confusing consecutive numbers: December 19 1941.


title: Comma

text: also recommend that the year be treated as a parenthetical, requiring a second comma after it: ""Feb. 14, 1987, was the target date.""


title: Comma

text: If just month and year are given, no commas are used: "Her daughter April may return in June 2009 for the reunion."


title: Comma

text: When the day precedes the month, the month name separates the numeric day and year, so commas are not necessary to separate them: "The Raid on Alexandria was carried out on 19 December 1941."


title: Comma

text: Commas are used to separate parts of geographical references, such as city and state ("Dallas, Texas") or city and country ("Kampala, Uganda"). Additionally, most style manuals, including "The Chicago Manual of Style"


title: Comma

text: recommend that the second element be treated as a parenthetical, requiring a second comma after: ""The plane landed in Kampala, Uganda, that evening.""


title: Comma

text: The United States Postal Service and Royal Mail recommend leaving out punctuation when writing addresses on actual letters and packages, as the marks hinder optical character recognition. Canada Post has similar guidelines, only making very limited use of hyphens.


title: Comma

text: Similar to the case in natural languages, commas are often used to delineate the boundary between multiple mathematical objects in a list (e.g., formula_1). Commas are also used to indicate the comma derivative of a tensor.


title: Comma

text: In representing large numbers, from the right side to the left, English texts usually use commas to separate each group of three digits in front of the decimal. This is almost always done for numbers of six or more digits, and often for four or five digits but not in front of the number itself. However, in much of Europe, Southern Africa and Latin America, periods or spaces are used instead; the comma is used as a decimal separator, equivalent to the use in English of the decimal point. In India, the groups are two digits, except for the rightmost group, which is of three digits. In some styles, the comma may not be used for this purpose at all (e.g. in the SI writing style); a space may be used to separate groups of three digits instead.


title: Comma

text: Commas are used when rewriting names to present the surname first, generally in instances of alphabetization by surname: "Smith, John." They are also used before many titles that follow a name: "John Smith, Ph.D."


title: Comma

text: Similarly in lists that are presented with an inversion: "...; socks, green: 3 pairs; socks, red: 2 pairs; tie, regimental: 1".


title: Comma

text: Commas may be used to indicate that a word, or a group of words, has been omitted, as in "The cat was white; the dog, brown." (Here the comma replaces "was".)


title: Comma

text: Commas are placed before, after, or around a noun or pronoun used independently in speaking to some person, place, or thing:


title: Comma

text: In his 1785 essay "An Essay on Punctuation", Joseph Robertson advocated a comma between the subject and predicate of long sentences for clarity; however, this usage is regarded as an error in modern times.


title: Comma

text: In Great Britain and many other parts of the world, punctuation is usually placed within quotation marks only if it is part of what is being quoted or referred to:


title: Comma

text: During the Second World War, the British carried the comma over into abbreviations. Specifically, "Special Operations, Executive" was written "S.O.,E.". Nowadays, even the full stops are frequently discarded.


title: Comma

text: Western European languages like German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese use the same comma as English, with similar spacing, though usage may be somewhat different. For instance, in Standard German, subordinate clauses are always preceded by commas.


title: Comma

text: The basic comma is defined in Unicode as , and many variants by typography or language are also defined.


title: Comma

text: There are also a number of comma-like diacritics with "" in their Unicode names that are not intended for use as punctuation. A comma-like low quotation mark is also available (shown below; corresponding sets of raised single quotation marks and double-quotation marks are not shown).


title: Comma

text: There are various other Unicode characters that include commas or comma-like figures with other characters or marks, that are not shown in these tables.


title: Comma

text: In Unicode 5.2.0 "numbers with commas" ( through ) were added to the Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement block for compatibility with the ARIB STD B24 character set.


title: Comma

text: Hebrew script is also written from right to left. However, Hebrew punctuation includes only a regular comma ().


title: Comma

text: Dravidian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam also use the punctuation mark in similar usage to that of European languages with similar spacing.


title: Comma

text: In the common character encoding systems Unicode and ASCII, character 44 (0x2C) corresponds to the comma symbol. The HTML numeric character reference is codice_1.


title: Comma

text: In many computer languages commas are used as a field delimiter to separate arguments to a function, to separate elements in a list, and to perform data designation on multiple variables at once.


title: Comma

text: In the C programming language the comma symbol is an operator which evaluates its first argument (which may have side-effects) and then returns the value of its evaluated second argument. This is useful in "for" statements and macros.


title: Comma

text: In Smalltalk and APL, the comma operator is used to concatenate collections, including strings. In APL, it is also used monadically to rearrange the items of an array into a list.


title: Comma

text: The comma-separated values (CSV) format is very commonly used in exchanging text data between database and spreadsheet formats.


title: Comma

text: The comma is used as a diacritic mark in Romanian under (, ), and under (, ). A cedilla is occasionally used instead of it, but this is technically incorrect. The symbol ('d with comma below') was used as part of the Romanian transitional alphabet (19th century) to indicate the sounds denoted by the Latin letter or letters , where derived from a Cyrillic ѕ (, ). The comma and the cedilla are both derivative of (a small cursive ) placed below the letter. From this standpoint alone, , , and could potentially be regarded as stand-ins for /sz/, /tz/, and /dz/ respectively.


title: Comma

text: In Latvian, the comma is used on the letters , , , , and historically also , to indicate palatalization. Because the lowercase letter has a descender, the comma is rotated 180° and placed over the letter. Although their Adobe glyph names are 'letter with comma', their names in the Unicode Standard are 'letter with a cedilla'. They were introduced to the Unicode standard before 1992 and, per Unicode Consortium policy, their names cannot be altered.


title: Comma

text: In Livonian, whose alphabet is based on a mixture of Latvian and Estonian alphabets, the comma is used on the letters , , , , to indicate palatalization in the same fashion as Latvian, except that Livonian uses and to represent the same palatal plosive phonemes which Latvian writes as and respectively.


title: Comma

text: In Czech and Slovak, the diacritic in the characters , , and resembles a superscript comma, but it is used instead of a caron because the letter has an ascender. Other ascender letters with carons, such as letters (used in Finnish Romani and Lakota) and (used in Skolt Sami), did not modify their carons to superscript commas.


title: Comma

text: In 16th-century Guatemala, the archaic letter cuatrillo with a comma ( and ) was used to write Mayan languages.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Martin is an American television sitcom that aired for five seasons on Fox from August 27, 1992, to May 1, 1997. The show starred comedian and namesake Martin Lawrence as the titular character. Lawrence also played several other characters. "Martin" was one of Fox's highest-rated shows during the sitcom's run.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Set in Detroit, Michigan, the series stars Martin Lawrence in the role of Martin Payne, a disc jockey with his girlfriend Gina Waters (Tisha Campbell). Martin works for the fictional radio station WZUP and later for local Public-access television station Channel 51. A common theme of the series is Martin's selfish and free-spirited nature. Episodes often center on Martin's inappropriate behaviors and incessant smart-mouth toward his friends, neighbors, and whoever else finds themselves in his presence.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: As the series progressed, plotlines saw Martin eventually move on to become the host of the talk show "Word on the Street", which aired on the small Detroit public-access television station Channel 51. He retained this position until the series' final episode, in which he and Gina prepare to move to Los Angeles. Gina's best friend Pam, whom Mr. Whitaker let go two episodes earlier due to downsizing, goes on to pursue a career in the music industry as an artists & repertoire (A&R) executive at Keep It Real Records (the plotline became the subject of a backdoor pilot episode that was included in the "Martin" series for a planned sitcom on Fox starring Tichina Arnold to be called "Goin' for Mine" [episode 129, "Goin' for Mine"], but the sitcom never materialized).


title: Martin (TV series)

text: In early episodes, Lawrence began with a monologue of him speaking directly to the camera and audience from the darkened radio studio. The only actor to appear in every episode as the same character is Thomas Mikal Ford as Tommy.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Martin Payne (Martin Lawrence) Martin, the title character, is a caring family man deep down, but on the outside a very macho, selfish smart aleck. Martin carries himself in a typical urban youth manner, with modern expressions and mannerisms. His girlfriend turned wife, Gina Waters, has sometimes tried to change him (much to his anger, seeing as he likes the way he acts), but this rarely worked. Martin is not much of a physical fighter despite trying to come off as such. He has a particularly antagonistic relationship with Gina's best friend Pam.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Gina Waters-Payne (Tisha Campbell), Martin's professional, fun-loving, eternally romantic and forgiving girlfriend and later wife. She often acts as a peacemaker, admonishing others when they trade barbs and insults and breaking up fights. Gina works for a public-relations firm. She complements Martin's street savvy by serving as a voice of reason. She is also Pam's best friend.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Cole Brown (Carl Anthony Payne II), Martin's other best friend. Dimwitted but well-meaning and known for his eclectic taste in headgear, Cole proudly cleans jets at the airport for a living, drives an AMC Pacer, and lives with his mother Maddie until early Season Five. For a time in Season 3, Cole appeared to be attracted strictly to plus-sized women and dated a security guard named Big Shirley (who is fully seen in only one episode; another episode only showed "her" below the neck to portray her as being much taller and bigger than Cole). In the final season, after Cole meets Shanise and moves into his own apartment in a rough neighborhood, he dates Shanise, who appears to be even more dimwitted than he is. During the series finale, he becomes engaged to Shanise.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Thomas "Tommy" Strawn (Thomas Mikal Ford), one of Martin's best friends. Level-headed, intelligent, and charming, Tommy serves as another voice of reason, especially during Martin's schemes. He would often portray himself as a ladies' man and would flirt with Pam and other women on the show. He had a romantic relationship with Pam during the third and fourth seasons. His mysterious employment status was a running gag on the show, with everyone saying, "You ain't got no job!". Of all the male characters, he is the only one to have attended college. He is also the only character to appear physically in every episode.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Pamela "Pam" James (Tichina Arnold), Gina's sassy and ill-tempered co-worker, best friend and Tommy's girlfriend. Before eventually dating Tommy, Pam was always looking for a good man. In Season 1, Cole expressed interest in her but she doesn't return the interest. Pam worked at the PR firm where she was employed as Gina's assistant. Pam has a very adversarial relationship with Martin. When he insults her, she responds typically via belittling that brings attention to Martin's short stature. Pam has a beautiful singing voice that she displays throughout the show.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Shawn McDermott (Jon Gries) , the scatterbrained radio station engineer at WZUP. Martin always finds himself having rather strange conversations with him. Shawn often does things that upset their boss Stan, and once even tried to secure a record deal from Snoop Dogg when he was at an engagement party for Martin & Gina. It is revealed in the Season 2 Finale (Shawn's final appearance) that when Stan sold WZUP he was retained by the new station as an engineer, explaining to Martin that WEHA fired all the former WZUP DJs in favor of automated machines and that all he does is go into the station every 8 hours to switch out the radio tapes in the machines. This episode displayed a wiser, more serious side of Shawn as he gives Martin some advice on life that actually made sense, telling Martin to "find out where he needs to be." Martin takes this advice to heart and embarks on a journey of self discovery that ultimately leads to his talk show gig. After this episode, Shawn is never seen or mentioned again, with the exception of the Season 4 clip show "The Best of Martin" in which he appears via archive footage.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Stan Winters (Garrett Morris) , Martin and Shawn's boss, the owner and founder of radio station WZUP. He perpetually used too much cologne and wore woefully outdated clothing from the 1970s. Martin knew Stan to be cheap and quite untrustworthy, and just when Martin didn't think Stan could sink any lower with his schemes, Stan was always able to surprise him. Furthermore, Garrett Morris' real-life shooting resulted in his unexpected absence in the episode and a major change in the storyline, regarding Martin's career. Therefore, Stan was absent in the episode "The Hoedown in Motown" when he must shell out $20,000 in unpaid taxes, precipitating his sale of the radio station. He returned for one episode in Season 3 to form a partnership with Martin, and together they opened a restaurant—Marty Mart's Meatloaf and Waffles. Needless to say, their joint venture was a failure. After this episode, Stan was never seen or mentioned again. Garrett Morris had filmed a scene on his actual hospital bed when he gave Martin and Shawn a videotaped message, and called in from the hospital to tell Martin he sold WZUP to settle with the IRS.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Bruh-Man (Brother Man) (Reginald Ballard) : Martin's neighbor, who debuts in season two. He lives on the fifth "flo" (yet he always puts 4 fingers up when relating this fact), directly upstairs from Martin. Whenever Martin asks what he is doing, Bruh-Man replies, "Nuttin'…just chillin'." He often climbs down the "f-a-a-a-ah 'scape" (fire escape), to enter Martin's apartment, taking food, borrowing assorted items, and generally lounging around as if he lives there. At first, this greatly annoyed Martin but he eventually got used to it. In fact, fire escapes seem to be his only means of movement throughout buildings—he is seldom seen entering or exiting the apartment through the front door. When he attended Martin and Gina's engagement party at Gina's apartment, he went as far as climbing the building since there was no fire escape. Bruh-Man always wears badly fitting clothing a size or two too small (frequently, items he's "borrowed" from Martin), and has a characteristic gait consisting of a slow and lazy, rather limping, plodding walk, with his head cocked to one side. Martin, as Bruh-Man was heading toward the window to make his exit, once referred to it as his "slow bop". Bruh-Man speaks in a deep voice and with a long drawl, like that of Shaquille O'Neal. Despite being a popular character, Bruh-Man was quietly phased out of the series after season three. His last appearances were in the fourth season, and he explains his absence by stating that he only comes around when Martin and Gina are away out of respect for their marriage. This is proven true as he is absent throughout the fifth and final season of the series, however he is mentioned once albeit briefly. In episode 13, "Ain't That About a Ditch", when Gina's mother locks Martin out of his apartment, he pauses to think, then whispers "Bruh-Man" to himself as he walks off to climb in through the fire escape, then Martin shows up in his apartment.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Hustle Man (Tracy Morgan) : The neighborhood purveyor of questionable products and services "at a discount rate! I don't do dat for err'body! I'm just tryna help "YOU" out!" He always greets Martin with his trademark "What's happenin', chief?" In one episode, one of Hustle Man's more outrageous items for sale was an 'appetizing' array of roasted pigeons impaled on a tree branch (as if barbecued on it), which he attempted to sell to Martin and his friends while they were snowed in and starving. In another episode he served as Martin's cut-rate "wedding planner", armed with a shopping cart brimming with plastic flowers, chitlin loaf, and a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor—Martin's retaliation for Gina's choice of a more elegant and ridiculously overpriced wedding planner.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Ms. Geri (Jeri Gray): She was a tough, trigger-happy senior who, regardless of her age and diminutive size, has no qualms about "whooping' ass". Most of her assaults are committed on Martin in everyday situations, such as standing in line at the DMV or at the unemployment office. On one occasion, her opponent was Dragonfly Jones (Lawrence), whom she soundly defeated as well, taking his money for good measure.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Shanise McGillicuddy (Maura McDade) is Cole's girlfriend (and later fiancée), during the fifth and final season. Shanise is a very friendly woman. She always has a positive attitude. However, she is even more dimwitted than Cole. She and Cole briefly break up in one episode but this occurs because when she told Cole she needed more space, he assumed she meant she wanted to break up but she actually wanted a bigger apartment. She is also thoughtful and willing to help others. In the episode "Over the Hoochie's Nest", she assists Martin, Tommy and Cole in rescuing Pam from an insane asylum. In the series finale, Cole wanted to ask Shanise to marry him. He had a hard time asking her due to him losing the ring. Shanise was even taken to get X-rayed in order for Cole to find the ring after he stuck it in cupcake. Finally, they become engaged when she is tricked into reading a letter that says "Will you marry me?" and Cole says yes to her. At the end of the episode, she is last seen helping the Paynes move out of their apartment as well as saying farewell to them. The character started minor but developed a grounded position in the group after Tisha Campbell briefly left the show.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Nipsey (Sean Lampkin) , the rotund, good-natured bartender who owns Nipsey's Lounge, the gang's favorite hangout.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Nadine Waters (Judyann Elder): Gina's doting and somewhat over-protective mother, who comes on as sophisticated, sweet and mild-mannered on the surface, but has shown a dark side on occasion—such as once getting immediately turned on by a brief scene from a porn video, and generally becoming quite flustered whenever conversation or situations turned to sexual subjects.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Dr. Cliff Waters (J.A. Preston): Gina's overbearing and overprotective father who works as a chiropractor. Instantly disliked Martin because he didn't feel he was good enough for his daughter. During the wedding rehearsal dinner, he threatens to start "capping" people, instantly inciting a major fight with members of the Payne family.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Lil' Dawg (Adrian Tibbs): A tall, lanky barber at Jim's Barber Shop whose unorthodox personal style is the subject of much ribbing in the workplace—he keeps his head nearly shaved, but grows a long mane of hair in back, and wears Coke-bottle-thick glasses. He is often seen at Nipsey's trolling for women (successfully!), and despite his looks and demeanor always seems to come out on top whenever he and Martin have a disagreement.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Buckwhite (Ray Massara): A very easygoing, tall white boy with a huge dark-coloured Afro, Buckwhite has been seen hanging out at Jim's Barber Shop, at Martin's apartment for various sporting events on TV, and at Nipsey's Lounge. He speaks Ebonics in an unaffected "normal" white manner. (Massara is actually a property master and special-effects assistant in the film and television industry; at the time of his appearances on "Martin", he was that production's property master.)


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Bro Fo' Real (Brother For Real) (Charlie Murphy): A faithful audience member of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program, and quite possibly Martin's number one fan. Bro Fo' Real attends every of Martin's taping for his show and encouraged Martin to be himself during one of the show's tapings ().


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Angry Man (David Jean Thomas): A fellow audience member of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program, and often can be found in other locations such as the DMV. He is prone to stand up and shout ""Man... SIT-CHO ASS DOWN!!"" when a guest (or anyone else, for that matter) says something he disagrees with.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Mr. and Mrs. Booker (Jeris Lee Poindexter and Ellia English): A married couple and audience members of Martin's "Word on the Street" television program. The Bookers are constantly arguing. Mr. Booker appears to be somewhat goofy and dimwitted, while Mrs. Booker is loud and aggressive. Their most prominent appearance is in the Season 4 episode "Kicked to the Curb", where they assist Martin and Gina in getting their apartment back, by scaring off the new tenants after Mrs. Booker pretends to be a scorned wife looking to fight the woman who was "creeping with her husband".


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Maddie Brown (Laura Hayes): Cole's gossiping, no-nonsense mother who still supports him. She's known for talking about other people and spreading their business around. For example, Martin being broke and having Gina support him.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Evelyn Porter (LaWanda Page): A senior resident who lives in Martin's apartment building who is also friends with Mama Payne and Cole's mother, Maddie.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Reverend Leon Lonnie Love (David Alan Grier): A local fire-and-brimstone preacher whose brand of religion doesn't seem to frown upon avarice, lying, cheating, stealing, and philandering—even with his own cousin Pam.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Marian (Roxanne Reese): A seemingly well-heeled, middle-aged neighborhood alcoholic who often appears at parties, nightclubs, and gatherings, such as the audience on Martin's show "Word on the Street" and The Ladies League of Detroit. However, in one episode, she reveals that she is not drunk, that she is instead on medication.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Laquita (Simbi Khali): The nail stylist at Sheneneh's Sho' Nuff Hair Salon and Sheneneh's even-more vocal best friend.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Bonquisha (Kim Coles): Another one of Sheneneh's friends who always has bad breath. Bonquisha routinely claims that Keylolo is the one that has bad breath stating that was "eaten chitlins".


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Varnell Hill (Tommy Davidson): A successful talk show host who had been a WZUP DJ, leaving WZUP for greener pastures shortly after Martin began work there. When Martin was scheduled to open a community center, Stan bumped him in favor of Varnell being in town, setting events in motion for Martin. Varnell invited Martin to be on his show if he is ever in Hollywood, but when Martin shows up, he is ignored, causing Martin to see that success means nothing without integrity. Tommy Davidson reprised his role as Varnell Hill in 2020 as a guest on Martin Lawrence's cooking webshow, complete with a canary yellow suit.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Luis (Luis Antonio Ramos): The superintendent of the apartment building where Martin lives. In one episode, he marries Pam to avoid deportation.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Titus (Bentley Kyle Evans): A handsome well-dressed guy who is Gina's hairdresser, and seems to be attracted to Martin—affectionately calling him "Almond". (Evans was the executive producer of "Martin"; he made several cameo and voice-only appearances throughout the series, including one of the callers on WZUP, a guest at one of Gina's parties, and the only guy who appeared at an all-male fashion show that Pam and Tommy sponsored.)


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Myra (BeBe Drake-Massey): Stan's girlfriend; they once double-dated with Martin and Gina (while Martin was on the outs with Cole, Pam and Tommy). She was a customer of Sheneneh's hair salon, and went bald after Gina treated her hair. She was last seen in season 3 working as a clerk at the unemployment office. After Martin leaves several low-paying jobs due to feeling he is making slow progress, Myra is fed up with him, but gets him a job after realizing he learned his lesson - buffing floors.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Gloria Rodriguez (Angelina Estrada): Station director and Martin's supervisor at television station Channel 51. Martin's work at Station 51 is more efficient than it was at WZUP, arguably because Mrs. Rodriguez is more professional in her duties than was Stan.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Bernice (Kymberly Newberry): A producer at Channel 51 who is always at odds with Martin. (Kymberly Newberry also briefly played an entirely different part of a shoe-saleswoman in episode 8 of season 2 "You've Got a Friend".)


title: Martin (TV series)

text: One of the trademark running gags of "Martin", especially early in its run, was Lawrence playing multiple characters, utilizing various costumes and prosthetic appliances. This was often done as a plot device or comic relief. Season four was the last season to feature Lawrence as multiple characters on a regular basis. This technique was rarely used in Season 5, which was the final season of the series. The only characters that appeared in Season 5 were Sheneneh, Roscoe and Elroy. Mama Payne does not appear but her voice is heard in the holiday episode "Scrooge". Most of the other characters were last seen in Season 4 and the episodes they last appeared in seemingly wrote them out of the series.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Sheneneh Jenkins: Played by Martin, she is an exaggerated parody of a stereotypical "ghetto girl": she always has on flashy clothes/fashion accessories and hair weaves; nature has endowed her with a disproportionately oversized ghetto booty; and she speaks in African American Vernacular English. Sheneneh is the owner/operator of "Sheneneh's Sho' Nuff Hair Salon". Mama Payne and Sheneneh were the only two characters Lawrence played as women on the show, and both characters hated Gina. Full of quirks, Sheneneh is tall and thick in build and often describes herself as a ""la-a-a-dy". Some of her other catchphrases are ""Oh mah goodnehhh!" and ""Aw-iight?" at every other word, and "Oh, no you didn't." Sheneneh's portrayed as being a very feisty, belligerent, touchy, antagonistic, confrontational and disparaging diva, known for her ghetto fabulous scoldings. She lives in the apartment across the hallway from Martin's and factors into many of the plots by picking fights with Gina and especially Pam out in the hallway. Sheneneh has several girlfriends who occasionally appeared in the program, those being Keylolo (Yo-Yo), Bonquisha (Kim Coles), and Laquita (Simbi Khali). Of all the secondary characters played by Lawrence, Sheneneh is the only one to make an appearance in the final episode, though only her voice was heard. The nae nae dance, created in 2013, was inspired by the way Sheneneh danced in "Martin", and was named after the character.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Edna (Mama) Payne: Martin's extremely frenetic, and easily excited mother, who is extremely over-protective of Martin, and who dislikes Gina immensely. Comically, Lawrence's mustache was never covered with stage make-up while in this role. Mama's mustache was occasionally the subject of a sharp retort by Gina when she and Martin argued. She has a brother named Junior (portrayed by John Witherspoon). Mama does not appear in the fifth and final season, but her voice is heard in the Christmas episode "Scrooge". She has the same catchphrase as her son Martin, ""Damn! Damn! Daaaaamn!"", a reference to the show "Good Times".


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Ol' Otis: A very abrasive, strict, stuttering and potbellied old man, who is always seen in uniform while on his job as a security guard. His catchphrase is repeatedly referring to males as "ba" [boy] and females as "ga" [girl]. Otis is usually seen melodramatically and hyperactively attempting to keep order whether there's trouble or not. Because of his immense gut, advanced age, and oafish appearance, Otis is often taken for a weak old man who just "acts" tough. Because of this, he's often challenged to physical fights following his abrasive behavior. Otis is always more than willing to oblige others in engaging in combat. Surprisingly through his buffoonish-styled wrestling, unexpected strength from Otis always catches his "antagonists" off guard, invariably making him the victor in the end. Otis's pet peeve is misconduct in the "younger generations". When all is said and done, he physically defeats all his much younger challengers with ease. In his final episode on the show, he moves to an undisclosed island. Otis does not appear in the fifth and final season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Jerome: A loudmouthed, aging, somehow well-funded, once-flashy but now-faded Detroit pimp. He runs an illicit casino, sports a family-heirloom gold tooth ("gold toof-es") in his mouth, was once voted Detroit's "Player of the Year", and has his sights set on Pam, as when he occasionally calls her "Junk in the Trunk". He often speaks in rhyming sentences. Jerome is shown to be very intelligent, as when cashiers at a convenient store were talking about him in their native language, he reveals his fluency to them shocking. Usually Jerome appears on the scene with his signature spiel, "Oooh, oooh, oo-oo-ooh, I say Jerome's in the house, I say Jerome's in the ah-um-ah-um... house! watch yo' mouth!" Jerome's final appearance on the show is in the episode "Uptown Friday Night" (which parodies "Uptown Saturday Night"), in which his final line is "And that's the eeeend!" Jerome does not appear in the fifth and final season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Roscoe: An antagonistic child with a perpetually runny nose and a very smart mouth, who can be considered Gina's arch-enemy (similar to Martin and Pam's rivalry). Lawrence played the role by "standing" on his knees, with shoes attached to his kneecaps. Roscoe only appears once during the first, fifth and final season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Dragonfly Jones: A martial arts "expert" who is beaten up in nearly every appearance. He always seems to owe money to a real martial artist named Kenji, who is actually a student of Dragonfly. Kenji who would often beat up Dragonfly whenever he refuses to pay him some small sum he is owed. Dragonfly does not appear in the fifth and final season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Bob: A white man who works in an unknown capacity at the marketing firm where Gina is employed, Bob is best described as a stereotypical surfer-dude-cum-redneck. He speaks in a Southern Californian accent mixed with a Southern twang, and often uses words like "dude" and "man", even in professional settings. Lawrence achieved a white appearance with stage make-up and a prosthetic nose appliance to make him appear Caucasian, as well as wearing a long, blond mullet wig to complete the look. Bob only appears in 2 episodes, once in the first season and again in the second season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: Elroy Preston: The fictional "Godfather of Black Surf Music" who is now completely forgotten and washed up. Preston works as an auto mechanic, and is best known for randomly breaking into song while performing his mechanical duties. He often distracts himself and irritates others when reminiscing on things that involve his trademark song, which consists only of Preston singing "Don't you know no good!" over and over. He makes one appearance in the fifth and final season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: King Beef: Cole's favorite 1970s blaxploitation movie actor, who is actually Lawrence in a huge bodysuit. Whenever trouble arises, he feels the overwhelming need to dance. It does not matter if he is on the run from Godzilla—he always finds time for dancing, and always with his scantily clad female co-stars flanking him. He is only seen during the first season.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: In 1997, Tisha Campbell filed a lawsuit against her co-star Martin Lawrence and the show's producers for sexual harassment and verbal and physical assaults, and she did not appear in most of the season five episodes. The explanation in most of the episodes Campbell did not appear in was that Gina was "out on business", though in the two-part episode "Going Overboard" it was stated that Gina had arrived too late to board the boat for the trip alongside everyone else. HBO Studios eventually settled the case with Campbell so that the show's last season could be completed. Campbell did return to the "Martin" set to film the two-part series finale of the show under the condition that she would not share any scenes with or interact in any way with Lawrence. In the episode, Martin and Gina kept entering and exiting the sets at different times and the storyline was adjusted so that the characters were both parts of it but never crossed paths.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: "Martin" went into second run syndication on August 8, 1995, airing on local stations primarily of the WB and UPN (later merged as CW) and Fox affiliates mostly near the 10:30/11:00pm timeslots.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: In 2009 it started to have a Spanish version aired on V-me, Azteca Latino, Sudamérica Televisión and in the Dominican Republic on Telemicro Channel 5.


title: Martin (TV series)

text: The series is able to be purchased on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV, YouTube, Vudu, and the iTunes Store as of July 2020.


title: Master of Fine Arts

text: is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts administration.


title: Master of Fine Arts

text: It is a graduate degree that typically requires two to three years of postgraduate study after a bachelor's degree, though the term of study varies by country or university. Coursework is primarily of an applied or performing nature, with the program often culminating in a thesis exhibition or performance. The first university to admit students to the degree of Master of Fine Arts was the University of Iowa in 1940.


title: Master of Fine Arts

text: A candidate for an MFA typically holds a bachelor's degree prior to admission, but many institutions do not require that the candidate's undergraduate major conform with their proposed path of study in the MFA program. Admissions requirements often consist of a sample portfolio of artworks or a performance audition.


title: Master of Fine Arts

text: The Master of Fine Arts differs from the Master of Arts in that the MFA, while still an academic program, centers-on professional artistic practice in the particular field, whereas programs leading to the MA usually center on the scholarly, academic, or critical study of the field. Additionally, in the United States, an MFA is typically recognized as a terminal degree for practitioners of visual art, design, dance, photography, theatre, film/video, new media, and creative writing—meaning that it is considered the highest degree in its field, qualifying an individual to become a professor at the university level in these disciplines.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: An air superiority fighter (or air-superiority fighter) is a fighter aircraft designed to seize control of enemy airspace by establishing tactical dominance (air superiority) over the opposing air force. Air-superiority fighters are primarily tasked to perform aerial combat against agile, lightly armed aircraft (most often enemy fighters) and eliminate any challenge over control of the airspace, although some (e.g. strike fighters) may have a secondary role for air-to-surface attacks.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: During World War II and through the Korean War, fighters were classified by their role: heavy fighter, interceptor, escort fighter, night fighter, and so forth. With the development of guided missiles in the 1950s, design diverged between fighters optimized to fight in the beyond visual range (BVR) regime (interceptors), and fighters optimized to fight in the within visual range (WVR) regime (air-superiority fighters). In the United States, the influential proponents of BVR developed fighters with no forward-firing gun, such as the original F-4 Phantom II, as it was thought that they would never need to resort to WVR combat. These aircraft would sacrifice high maneuverability, and instead focus on other performance characteristics, as they presumably would never engage in a dogfight with enemy fighters.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: Combat experiences during the Vietnam War proved BVR proponents wrong. Owing to restrictive rules of engagement and the failings of 1960s missile and radar technology, air combat often devolved into close-range dogfights. The lessons from this conflict spurred a rethinking of design priorities for fighter aircraft and development of the U.S. Navy's TOPGUN and the U.S. Air Force's Red Flag programs to teach pilots the lessons of dogfighting.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: After lessons learned from combat experiences involving modern military air capacity, the U.S. Navy's VFAX/VFX and U.S. Air Force's F-X (Fighter Experimental) reassessed their tactical direction which resulted in the U.S. Navy's F-14 Tomcat and US Air Force's F-15 Eagle. The two designs were built to achieve air superiority and significant consideration was given during the development of both aircraft to allow them to excel at the shorter ranges of fighter combat. Both aircraft also serve as interceptors due to their high maximum speed.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: By contrast, the Soviets (and the succeeding Russian Federation) developed and continue to operate separate types of aircraft, the interceptor MiG-31 and the short-range MiG-29 for air superiority, although the long-range Su-27 can combine the roles of air superiority and interceptor.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: For the US Navy, the F-14 Tomcat was initially deployed solely as an air-superiority fighter, as well as fleet defense interceptor and tactical aerial reconnaissance. By contrast, the multirole F/A-18 Hornet was designed as strike fighter while having only enough of an edge to defend itself against enemy fighters if needed. While the F-14 had an undeveloped secondary ground attack capability (with a Stores Management System (SMS) that included air-to-ground options as well as rudimentary software in the AWG-9), the Navy did not want to risk it in the air-to-ground role at the time, due to its lack of proper defensive electronic countermeasures (DECM) and radar homing and warning (RHAW) for overland operations, as well as the fighter's high cost. In the 1990s, the US Navy added LANTIRN pods to its F-14s and deployed them on precision ground-attack missions.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: The F-15 Eagle was envisioned originally as an air-superiority fighter and interceptor under the mantra "not a pound for air-to-ground". However, the F-15C can carry "dumb" and GPS guided bombs, such capabilities which were first used by Israeli Air Force. In fact, the basic airframe proved versatile enough to produce a very capable strike fighter, the F-15E Strike Eagle. While designed for ground attack, it retains the air-to-air lethality of the original F-15. Similarly, the F-16 Fighting Falcon was also originally designed as fighter but has since evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: Since the 1990s, with air-superiority fighters such as the F-14 and F-15 pressed into the strike role and/or having a strike derivative, the lines between air-superiority fighters and multirole fighters has blurred somewhat. The F-22 Raptor, designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, would receive some strike capability through mission system upgrades. Similarly the MiG-29 and Su-27, despite originally designed for air superiority, have been commonly outfitted to use a range of air-to-surface armaments which would make them multirole fighters, indeed the Su-34 strike fighter has been derived from the Su-27.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: With the retirement of the F-14 Tomcat, the US Navy has pressed its F/A-18 Hornet and its upsized derivative, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, into fleet defence fighter, despite the Hornets being originally designed as multirole strike fighters. Due to the high costs of aircraft development, the next generation of USAF air superiority platforms will be multirole with strike capabilities designed from the outset.


title: Air superiority fighter

text: A possible definition of an air-superiority fighter is a fighter capable of at least Mach 2 with a range greater than 3,000km without refueling in-flight and armed with 8+ missiles, capable of engaging enemy fighters with missiles beyond the visual range and with IR missiles and gun in an agile dogfight, all in one mission.


The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches are currently being organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to decide the participating teams of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast, the 34th edition of the international men's football championship of Africa. A total of 24 teams will qualify to play in the final tournament, including Ivory Coast, who qualify automatically as hosts.


title: 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

text: All 54 CAF member associations entered to the competition. The seeding was based on the FIFA World Ranking from 23 December 2021 with teams ranked 1st to 42nd received a bye to the qualifying group stage, while the teams ranked 43rd to 54th had to participate in the preliminary round.


text: The twelve lowest-ranked teams were drawn into six ties to be played in home-and-away two-legged format. The six winners advanced to the group stage to join the 42 teams which enter directly.


text: The group stage draw took place on 19 April 2022 at 19:30 SAST () at SuperSport Broadcasting Studios in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 48 national teams involved were drawn into twelve groups of four teams (from Group A to Group L) which consisted of the 42 teams which entered directly, in addition to the six winners of the preliminary round. Previously the 48 national teams were seeded into four pots of twelve based on the FIFA World Rankings released on 31 March 2022 (shown in parentheses).


text: The draw started with pot 4 and ended with pot 1; each team drawn was assigned into the first available group alphabetically (A–L) and within the group was placed in the position that corresponded to it according to its pot (i.e. position 1 for teams from pot 1, position 2 for teams from pot 2, position 3 for teams from pot 3 and position 4 for teams from pot 4).


text: The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations hosts, Ivory Coast, will participate in the qualifiers regardless of the team being guaranteed a spot in the finals, which means only the best ranked team within their group apart from Ivory Coast will qualify for the finals. The Ivory Coast matches and results will count in determining the qualification of the other teams from their group.


text: Kenya and Zimbabwe were included in the draw despite being temporary suspended by FIFA from all international football activities. However, if their suspension were not lifted two weeks before their first match of the qualifiers, both national teams would be eliminated from the competition. In that case, their groups would be composed of only three teams, with the group winners and runners-up qualifying to the finals. Both Kenya and Zimbabwe could not be drawn in the same group in order to avoid one group with only two teams in case the suspension is not lifted. On 23 May 2022, CAF announced that both teams had been disqualified from the qualifiers as a result of their suspension not being lifted by FIFA.


text: The draw ceremony was conducted by the CAF Director of Competitions Samson Adamu with assistance by former South Africa defender Lucas Radebe and former Ivory Coast striker Salomon Kalou.


text: The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations Article 14):


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Nigel John Taylor (born 20 June 1960) is a British musician who is best known as the bass guitarist for new romantic band Duran Duran, of which he was a founding member. Duran Duran was one of the most popular bands in the world during the 1980s due in part to their music videos which played in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV. Taylor played with Duran Duran from its founding in 1978 until 1997, when he left to pursue a solo recording and film career. He recorded a dozen solo releases (albums, EPs, and video projects) through his private record label B5 Records over the next four years, had a lead role in the movie "Sugar Town", and made appearances in a half dozen other film projects. He rejoined Duran Duran for a reunion of the original five members of the group in 2001 and has remained with the group since.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Born in Solihull, which was then in Warwickshire, John Taylor grew up in nearby Hollywood, Worcestershire, England. As a child, he attended Our Lady of the Wayside Catholic school and the Abbey High School, in Redditch, wore glasses (due to severe myopia, over -10 dioptres), enjoyed James Bond movies and was interested in the hobby of wargaming with hand-painted model soldiers. In his early teen years, he discovered music, choosing Roxy Music as his favourite band, and before long was collecting records and teaching himself to play the piano. His first band was called Shock Treatment.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 1978, Taylor and school friend Nick Rhodes formed Duran Duran with Stephen Duffy while attending the School of Foundation Studies & Experimental Workshop at Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University). Soon after Taylor underwent an "ugly duckling" transformation—ditching the glasses for contact lenses, adopting the ruffles and sashes of the fashion that would become known as the New Romantic style, and learning to wear eyeliner and lipstick. He stopped using the name "Nigel", and has been known throughout his professional career as John Taylor.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor played guitar when Duran Duran was founded, but switched to bass guitar after discovering the funky rhythms of Chic, and learned to enjoy playing in the rhythm section with Duran's newly recruited drummer Roger Taylor. He has frequently cited Chic's Bernard Edwards and The Clash's Paul Simonon as his strongest influences, in addition to Paul McCartney, James Jamerson, and Roxy Music players Graham Simpson and John Porter. Duran Duran released their first album in 1981, and went on to worldwide success in the early 1980s.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 1985, after recording the theme song to the Bond movie "A View to a Kill", Duran Duran split into two side projects. John Taylor and Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor joined forces with former Chic drummer Tony Thompson and Robert Palmer, who earlier met at Duran Duran's charity concert at Aston Villa football ground 1983, to form the band The Power Station. With the guidance of producer Bernard Edwards, they released one album, "The Power Station", which produced the hit singles "Some Like It Hot" and the T.Rex cover song "Bang a Gong (Get It On)".


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: That year, Taylor also launched his first solo effort, recording the single "I Do What I Do..." for the soundtrack to the movie "9½ Weeks" starring Kim Basinger. He also wrote some instrumental music for the movie's score with collaborator Jonathan Elias.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: When Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor left the band, the three remaining members reformed Duran Duran for the 1986 "Notorious" album, and continued to record and tour throughout the 1990s with new guitarist Warren Cuccurullo.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: On 24 December 1991, Taylor married 19-year-old Amanda de Cadenet, who was already pregnant with his daughter Atlanta (born 31 March 1992). He moved from England to Los Angeles, California to help further his wife's acting career, as well as to escape constant attention from the British tabloids. Taylor's marriage declined even as Duran Duran's star rose with the success of 1993's "Duran Duran", also known as "The Wedding Album". In late 1994, Taylor sought treatment for his substance abuse, and has remained sober since. He and de Cadenet separated in May 1995.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Duran Duran's success rapidly waned with the widely derided 1995 covers album "Thank You". Following that album's supporting tour, Duran Duran spent part of the summer of 1995 in London working on the album "Medazzaland". Concurrently, Taylor devoted time to the side project Neurotic Outsiders, recording and touring with that band from the end of 1995 through the start of 1996.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: During 1997 and 1998, Taylor built and toured with a band called "John Taylor Terroristen" (Gerry Laffy on guitar, Michael Railton/Tio Banks on keyboard, Larry Aberman on drums, John Amato on sax and flute) which played numerous shows in Southern California before touring the East and West Coasts of the United States. Terroristen released a live EP "5.30.98" and the accompanying video "Better Off Alive" through the Trust The Process website. After 9/11, Taylor said he would never use the band name "Terroristen" again.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor also began making forays into acting. His long friendship with Allison Anders led to a starring role in her independent film, "Sugar Town", in 1998. He also appeared in small roles in several other movies and TV programmes over the next couple of years.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 1999, Taylor released two albums of earlier material. The first, "Résumé", was made up of unreleased music that he and Jonathan Elias had worked on together during the 1985 sessions for the "9½ Weeks" movie soundtrack. The second, "Meltdown", was a collection of tracks Taylor had laid down in 1992, during the extensive delays in Duran Duran's recording of "The Wedding Album".


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Later in 1999 Taylor signed a recording contract with the Japanese record label Avex Trax, and released an album labelled simply "John Taylor" on the cover, but listed in his official discography as "The Japan Album". He continued recording for Avex in 2000, and early in 2001 released "Techno For Two" (featuring the international hit "6,000 Miles" co-written by Matthew Hager), a decidedly non-techno album filled with very personal songs. Shortly after, as talks began for a potential Duran Duran reunion, Taylor decided to create a retrospective package called "Retreat into Art" demonstrating his development over the previous five years.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor's final solo release, completed after the Duran Duran reunion was under way, was the collection "MetaFour" released in 2002.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In October 2012, Taylor released an autobiography called "In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran". In 2013, the Writers in Treatment organisation awarded Taylor with the "Experience, Strength and Hope" award for his work.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 2000, Taylor was approached at his home in Los Angeles by singer Simon Le Bon about a possible reunion with the original Duran Duran lineup, and he was enthusiastic about the idea as long as the other Taylors (Roger and Andy, who had left the band in 1986) were willing to rejoin as well. An agreement was soon reached, and Taylor demonstrated his renewed commitment to the band by getting an enormous linked-D's tattoo on the upper side of his right arm


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: After a highly successful tour of Japan in 2003, the reunited band was signed with Epic Records, and released the album "Astronaut" in October 2004. They toured throughout the first half of 2005 before returning to the studio to work on their next new album. Guitarist Andy Taylor left the band again in October 2006, and recordings from this session (with the working title "Reportage") were set aside when the band got a chance to work with famed producer Timbaland. The resulting album, "Red Carpet Massacre", was released in November 2007. To celebrate its release the band took the unprecedented step of performing the album in its entirety for 10 special performances on Broadway in New York City, with a world tour in 2008.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In December 2010, the band released its 13th studio album, "All You Need is Now", on its own record label, Tapemodern. Initially, an abbreviated version was offered to iTunes, but the physical album arrived in shops in March 2011.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor's side project Neurotic Outsiders has re-convened for an occasional live show or two since a surprise four-show stint at the Viper Room in 1999.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor made his first film appearance outside of Duran Duran as "The Hacker" (alongside then-girlfriend Virginia Hey) in the pilot episode of "Timeslip", a 1985 TV programme that was not further developed. He later made a guest appearance in the 1985 "Miami Vice" episode titled "Whatever Works". In the episode, he, along with Tony Thompson, Andy Taylor, and Michael Des Barres played Power Station's 1985 hit "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". John was the only band member who had spoken lines, introducing character Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) to new lead singer Michael Des Barres. Taylor also made cameo appearances in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas", and "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher in 2000, and "A Diva's Christmas Carol" in 2000 starring Vanessa Williams as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and "That '80s Show" in 2002. He also appeared on BBC Two comedy panel game "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" as a panelist in April 2001.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 2010, he contributed bass to the debut album by Swahili Blonde with ex-Weave! drummer Nicole Turley on the track "Tigress Ritual".


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In 2020, he was interviewed in the Michael Cumming/Stewart Lee documentary King Rocker - a film about Robert Lloyd and The Nightingales, in regards to the early punk music scene in Birmingham and his band Shock Treatment.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: From 1985 to 1989, John dated Danish model Renée Toft Simonsen, to whom he was engaged. John married Amanda De Cadenet at Chelsea Old Town Hall's register office on 24 December 1991, and they had one daughter, Atlanta Noo, on 31 March 1992. They officially separated in May 1995.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: In late 1994, Taylor sought treatment for his alcohol and substance abuse, and has remained sober since.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: John met his second wife, Gela Nash, co-founder of Juicy Couture, in 1996, and they married in Las Vegas on 27 March 1999.


title: John Taylor (bass guitarist)

text: Taylor and Nash-Taylor reside primarily in Los Angeles, but spend several weeks a year at South Wraxall Manor, which they purchased in 2005. In 2013 Taylor became an American citizen, maintaining dual citizenship.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement (German: "Entfremdung") of people from aspects of their human nature ("Gattungswesen", 'species-essence') as a consequence of the division of labor and living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: The theoretical basis of alienation is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie—who own the means of production—in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business competition among industrialists.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" (1932), Karl Marx expressed the "Entfremdung" theory—of estrangement from the self. Philosophically, the theory of "Entfremdung" relies upon "The Essence of Christianity" (1841) by Ludwig Feuerbach, which states that the idea of a supernatural god has alienated the natural characteristics of the human being. Moreover, Max Stirner extended Feuerbach's analysis in "The Ego and its Own" (1845) that even the idea of 'humanity' is an alienating concept for individuals to intellectually consider in its full philosophic implication. Marx and Friedrich Engels responded to these philosophical propositions in "The German Ideology" (1845).


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In a capitalist society, the worker's alienation from their humanity occurs because the worker can express labour—a fundamental social aspect of personal individuality—only through a private system of industrial production in which each worker is an instrument: i.e., a thing, not a person. In the "Comment on James Mill" (1844), Marx explained alienation thus: Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have, in two ways, affirmed himself, and the other person. (i) In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and, therefore, enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also, when looking at the object, I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses, and, hence, a power beyond all doubt. (ii) In your enjoyment, or use, of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature ... Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" (1844/1932), Marx identified four types of alienation that occur to the worker labouring under a capitalist system of industrial production. They are alienation of the worker from their product, from the act of production, from their "Gattungswesen" ('species-essence') and from other workers.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: The design of the product and how it is produced are determined, not by the producers who make it (the workers), nor by the consumers of the product (the buyers), but by the capitalist class who besides accommodating the worker's manual labour also accommodate the intellectual labour of the engineer and the industrial designer who create the product in order to shape the taste of the consumer to buy the goods and services at a price that yields a maximal profit. Aside from the workers having no control over the design-and-production protocol, alienation ("Entfremdung") broadly describes the conversion of labour (work as an activity), which is performed to generate a use value (the product), into a commodity, which—like products—can be assigned an exchange value. That is, the capitalist gains control of the manual and intellectual workers and the benefits of their labour, with a system of industrial production that converts said labour into concrete products (goods and services) that benefit the consumer. Moreover, the capitalist production system also reifies labour into the "concrete" concept of "work" (a job), for which the worker is paid wages—at the lowest-possible rate—that maintain a maximum rate of return on the capitalist's investment capital; this is an aspect of exploitation. Furthermore, with such a reified system of industrial production, the profit (exchange value) generated by the sale of the goods and services (products) that could be paid to the workers is instead paid to the capitalist classes: the functional capitalist, who manages the means of production; and the rentier capitalist, who owns the means of production.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In the capitalist mode of production, the generation of products (goods and services) is accomplished with an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive motions that offer the worker little psychological satisfaction for "a job well done." By means of commodification, the labor power of the worker is reduced to wages (an exchange value); the psychological estrangement ("Entfremdung") of the worker results from the unmediated relation between his productive labor and the wages paid to him for the labor. The worker is alienated from the means of production via two forms: wage compulsion and the imposed production content. The worker is bound to unwanted labour as a means of survival, labour is not "voluntary but coerced" (forced labor). The worker is only able to reject wage compulsion at the expense of their life and that of their family. The distribution of private property in the hands of wealth owners, combined with government enforced taxes compel workers to labor. In a capitalist world, our means of survival is based on monetary exchange, therefore we have no other choice than to sell our labour power and consequently be bound to the demands of the capitalist.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: The worker "[d]oes not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself;" "[l]abor is external to the worker," it is not a part of their essential being. During work, the worker is miserable, unhappy and drained of their energy, work "mortifies his body and ruins his mind." The production content, direction and form are imposed by the capitalist. The worker is being controlled and told what to do since they do not own the means of production they have no say in production, "labor is external to the worker, i.e. it does not belong to his essential being. A person's mind should be free and conscious, instead it is controlled and directed by the capitalist, "the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own but someone else's, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another." This means he cannot freely and spontaneously create according to his own directive as labor's form and direction belong to someone else.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: The "Gattungswesen" ('species-essence' or 'human nature'), of individuals is not discrete (separate and apart) from their activity as a worker and as such species-essence also comprises all of innate human potential as a person.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: Conceptually, in the term "species-essence", the word "species" describes the intrinsic human mental essence that is characterized by a "plurality of interests" and "psychological dynamism," whereby every individual has the desire and the tendency to engage in the many activities that promote mutual human survival and psychological well-being, by means of emotional connections with other people, with society. The psychic value of a human consists in being able to conceive (think) of the ends of their actions as purposeful ideas, which are distinct from the actions required to realize a given idea. That is, humans are able to objectify their intentions by means of an idea of themselves as "the subject" and an idea of the thing that they produce, "the object." Conversely, unlike a human being an animal does not objectify itself as "the subject" nor its products as ideas, "the object," because an animal engages in directly self-sustaining actions that have neither a future intention, nor a conscious intention. Whereas a person's "Gattungswesen" does not exist independently of specific, historically conditioned activities, the essential nature of a human being is actualized when an individual—within their given historical circumstance—is free to subordinate their will to the internal demands they have imposed upon themselves by their imagination and not the external demands imposed upon individuals by other people.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: Whatever the character of a person's consciousness (will and imagination), societal existence is conditioned by their relationships with the people and things that facilitate survival, which is fundamentally dependent upon cooperation with others, thus, a person's consciousness is determined inter-subjectively (collectively), not subjectively (individually), because humans are a social animal. In the course of history, to ensure individual survival societies have organized themselves into groups who have different, basic relationships to the means of production. One societal group (class) owned and controlled the means of production while another societal class worked the means of production and in the relations of production of that "status quo" the goal of the owner-class was to economically benefit as much as possible from the labour of the working class. In the course of economic development when a new type of economy displaced an old type of economy—agrarian feudalism superseded by mercantilism, in turn superseded by the Industrial Revolution—the rearranged economic order of the social classes favored the social class who controlled the technologies (the means of production) that made possible the change in the relations of production. Likewise, there occurred a corresponding rearrangement of the human nature ("Gattungswesen") and the system of values of the owner-class and of the working-class, which allowed each group of people to accept and to function in the rearranged "status quo" of production-relations.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: Despite the ideological promise of industrialization—that the mechanization of industrial production would raise the mass of the workers from a brutish life of subsistence existence to honorable work—the division of labour inherent to the capitalist mode of production thwarted the human nature ("Gattungswesen") of the worker and so rendered each individual into a mechanistic part of an industrialized system of production, from being a person capable of defining their value through direct, purposeful activity. Moreover, the near-total mechanization and automation of the industrial production system would allow the (newly) dominant bourgeois capitalist social class to exploit the working class to the degree that the value obtained from their labour would diminish the ability of the worker to materially survive. Hence [?], when the proletarian working-class become a sufficiently developed political force, they will effect a revolution and re-orient the relations of production to the means of production—from a capitalist mode of production to a communist mode of production. In the resultant communist society, the fundamental relation of the workers to the means of production would be equal and non-conflictual because there would be no artificial distinctions about the value of a worker's labour; the worker's humanity ("Gattungswesen") thus respected, men and women would not become alienated.