title: Slam Dunk Contest

text: "Beginning with this year, the two highest dunks in each round constituted the competitor's total score."


title: Slam Dunk Contest

text: 2012The format for this season was changed so that each participant had 3 dunks, and the results would be entirely decided by fan voting online, via text messaging, and (for the first time) via Twitter.


title: Slam Dunk Contest

text: 2014A team format was adopted this year. The first round was a Freestyle Round, with the winning team choosing the order of dunkers for the Battle Round. The Battle Round was then composed of one-on-one "battles", with the first team to three victories being the champion.


title: Slam Dunk Contest

text: Historically, the dunk contest drew some mild criticisms. One is that players who often compete in these contests are seen as dunkers only (with the obvious exceptions of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Julius Erving), which is why notable high flying athletes like Shawn Marion and LeBron James have sometimes refused to participate. High-profile players such as Dwyane Wade and Charles Barkley have also declined to participate citing it as an unnecessary risk to injury. In the 2000 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Tracy McGrady injured his wrist while performing a dunk. Also in the 1995 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Tony Dumas hurt his knee while performing his "Texas Twister" dunk. Although a longtime critic, LeBron James said he would perform in the 2010 Slam Dunk Contest. This decision was made after watching the 2009 dunk contest when Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson went at it. However, he withdrew his statement once the All-Star Weekend came around.


title: Slam Dunk Contest

text: The 2006 NBA Slam Dunk Competition between Nate Robinson and Andre Iguodala drew much criticism because players were not penalized for missing a dunk attempt. Consequently, Robinson attempted a single dunk 14 times before completing it. Prior to the 2007 competition, the NBA changed a few rules to prevent excessive dunk attempts. Each participant has two minutes to complete their dunk. At the end of the two minutes allotted, they then have their number of dunk attempts limited to two.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: The Isthmus of Panama (), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal. Like many isthmuses, it is a location of great geopolitical and strategic importance.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: The isthmus is thought to have been formed around 3 million years ago,<ref name="/"></ref> separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and causing the creation of the Gulf Stream. This was first suggested in 1910 by North American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn. He based the proposal on the fossil record of mammals in Central America. This conclusion provided a foundation for Alfred Wegener when he proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: Vasco Núñez de Balboa heard of the South Sea from natives while sailing along the Caribbean coast. On 25 September 1513 his expedition became the first Europeans to see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas. In 1519 the town of Panamá was founded near a small indigenous settlement on the Pacific coast. After the Spanish colonization of Peru, it developed into an important port of trade and became an administrative centre. In 1671 the Welsh privateer Henry Morgan crossed the Isthmus of Panamá from the Caribbean side and destroyed the city. The town was relocated some kilometers to the west at a small peninsula. The ruins of the old town, Panamá Viejo, are preserved and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: Silver and gold from the viceroyalty of Peru were transported overland across the isthmus by Spanish Silver Train to Porto Bello, where Spanish treasure fleets shipped them to Seville and Cádiz from 1707. Lionel Wafer spent four years between 1680 and 1684 among the Kuna or Guna Indians. Scotland tried to establish a settlement in 1698 through the Darien scheme.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: The California Gold Rush, starting in 1849, brought a large increase in the transportation of people from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Steamships brought gold diggers from eastern US ports, who trekked across the isthmus by foot, horse, and later rail. On the Pacific side, they boarded Pacific Mail Steamship Company vessels headed for San Francisco.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: Ferdinand de Lesseps, the developer of the Suez Canal, started a Panama Canal Company in 1880 that went bankrupt in 1889 in the Panama scandals. In 1902–1904, the United States forced Colombia to grant independence to the Department of the Isthmus, bought the remaining assets of the Panama Canal Company, and finished the canal in 1914.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: A significant body of water (referred to as the Central American Seaway) once separated the continents of North and South America, allowing the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mix freely. Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earth's crust were slowly colliding, forcing the Cocos Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate. The pressure and heat caused by this collision led to the formation of underwater volcanoes, some of which grew large enough to form islands. Meanwhile, movement of the two tectonic plates was also pushing up the sea floor, eventually forcing some areas above sea level.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: Over time, massive amounts of sediment from North and South America filled the gaps between the newly forming islands. Over millions of years, the sediment deposits added to the islands until the gap was completely filled. By no later than 4.5 million years ago, an isthmus had formed between North and South America. However, an article in "Science" magazine stated that zircon crystals in middle Miocene bedrock from northern Colombia indicated that by 10 million years ago, it is likely that instead of islands, a full isthmus between the North and South American continents had already formed where the Central American Seaway had been previously. A genomic study of army ants also tends to confirm that the isthmus emerged millions of years earlier than had long been thought.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: Evidence also suggests that the creation of this land mass and the subsequent warm, wet weather over northern Europe resulted in the formation of a large Arctic ice cap and contributed to the current ice age. That warm currents can lead to glacier formation may seem counterintuitive, but heated air flowing over the warm Gulf Stream can hold more moisture. The result is increased precipitation that contributes to snow pack.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: The formation of the Isthmus of Panama also played a major role in biodiversity on the planet. The bridge made it easier for animals and plants to migrate between the two continents. This event is known in paleontology as the Great American Interchange. For instance, in North America, the opossum, armadillo, and porcupine all trace back to ancestors that came across the land bridge from South America. Likewise, bears, cats, dogs, horses, llamas, and raccoons all made the trek south across the isthmus.


title: Isthmus of Panama

text: As the connecting bridge between two vast land masses, the Panamanian biosphere is filled with overlapping fauna and flora from both North and South America. There are, for example, over 978 species of birds in the isthmus area. The tropical climate also encourages a myriad of large and brightly colored species, insects, amphibians, birds, fish, and reptiles. Divided along its length by a mountain range, the isthmus's weather is generally wet on the Atlantic (Caribbean) side but has a clearer division into wet and dry seasons on the Pacific side.


title: Spanish phonology

text: This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system see History of Spanish. For details of geographical variation see Spanish dialects and varieties.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The phonemes , , and are realized as approximants (namely , hereafter represented without the downtacks) or fricatives in all places except after a pause, after a nasal consonant, or—in the case of —after an ""L""; in such contexts they are realized as voiced stops.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The phoneme is realized as an approximant in all contexts except after a pause, a nasal, or a lateral. In these environments, it may be realized as an affricate (). The approximant allophone differs from non-syllabic in a number of ways; it has a lower F2 amplitude, is longer, can only appear in the syllable onset (including word-initially, where non-syllabic normally never appears), is a fricative in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g. "viuda" 'widow' vs "ayuda" 'help'). The two also overlap in distribution after and : "enyesar" ('to plaster') "aniego" ('flood'). Although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like "abyecto" ('abject') vs "abierto" ('opened'). There are some alternations between the two, prompting scholars like to postulate an archiphoneme , so that "ley" would be transcribed phonemically as and "leyes" as .


title: Spanish phonology

text: In a number of varieties, including some American ones, a process parallel to the one distinguishing non-syllabic from consonantal occurs for non-syllabic and a rare consonantal . Near-minimal pairs include "deshuesar" ('to debone') vs. "desuello" ('skinning'), "son huevos" ('they are eggs') vs "son nuevos" ('they are new'), and huaca" ('Indian grave') vs u oca" ('or goose').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Many young Argentinians have no distinct phoneme and use the sequence instead, thus making no distinction between "huraño" and "uranio" (both ).


title: Spanish phonology

text: The phoneme (as distinct from ) is found in some areas in Spain (mostly northern and rural) and some areas of South America (mostly highlands).


title: Spanish phonology

text: Most varieties spoken in Spain, including those prevalent on radio and television, have both and "distinción". However, speakers in parts of southern Spain, the Canary Islands, nearly all of Latin America have only ("seseo"). Some speakers in southernmost Spain (especially coastal Andalusia) have only (a consonant similar to ) and not ("ceceo"). This "ceceo" is not entirely unknown in the Americas, especially in coastal Peru. The phoneme has three different pronunciations ("laminal s", "apical s" or "apical dental s") depending on dialect. The word "distinción" itself is pronounced with in varieties that have it.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The phonemes and are laminal denti-alveolars (). The phoneme becomes dental before denti-alveolar consonants, while remains interdental in all contexts.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Before front vowels , the velar consonants (including the lenited allophone of ) are realized as post-palatal .


title: Spanish phonology

text: According to some authors, is post-velar or uvular in the Spanish of northern and central Spain. Others describe as velar in European Spanish, with a uvular allophone () appearing before and (including when is in the syllable onset as ).


title: Spanish phonology

text: A common pronunciation of in nonstandard speech is the voiceless bilabial fricative , so that "fuera" is pronounced rather than . In some Extremaduran, western Andalusian, and American varieties, this softened realization of , when it occurs before the non-syllabic allophone of (), is subject to merger with ; in some areas the homophony of "fuego"/"juego" is resolved by replacing "fuego" with "lumbre" or "candela".


title: Spanish phonology

text: In native Spanish words, the trilled does not appear after a glide. That said, it does appear after in some Basque loans, such as Aurrerá, a grocery store, Abaurrea Alta and Abaurrea Baja, towns in Navarre, , a type of dance, and , an adjective referring to poorly tilled land.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Some of the phonemic contrasts between consonants in Spanish are lost in certain phonological environments, and especially in syllable-final position. In these cases the phonemic contrast is said to be neutralized.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The three nasal phonemes—, , and —maintain their contrast when in syllable-initial position (e.g. "cama" 'bed', "cana" 'grey hair', "caña" 'sugar cane'). In syllable-final position, this three-way contrast is lost as nasals assimilate to the place of articulation of the following consonant—even across a word boundary; or, if a nasal is followed by a pause rather than a consonant, it is realized for most speakers as alveolar (though in Caribbean varieties, this may instead be or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel). Thus is realized as before labial consonants, and as before velar ones.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Similarly, assimilates to the place of articulation of a following coronal consonant, i.e. a consonant that is interdental, dental, alveolar, or palatal. In dialects that maintain the use of , there is no contrast between and in coda position, and syllable-final appears only as an allophone of in rapid speech.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The alveolar trill and the alveolar flap are in phonemic contrast word-internally between vowels (as in "carro" 'car' vs "caro" 'expensive'), but are otherwise in complementary distribution as long as syllable structure is taken into account: the tap occurs after any syllable-initial consonant, while the trill occurs after any syllable-final consonant.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Only the tap can occur after a word-initial obstruent consonant as part of a cluster (e.g. "tres" 'three', "frío" 'cold').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Only the trill can occur word-initially (e.g. "rey" 'king') or at the start of a word-internal syllable when the preceding syllable ends with a consonant, which is always the case after , , (e.g. "alrededor", "enriquecer", "Israel").


title: Spanish phonology

text: After the word-medial obstruent consonants , , , either a tap or trill can be found depending on whether the rhotic consonant is pronounced in the same syllable as the preceding obstruent (forming a complex onset cluster) or in a separate syllable (with the obstruent in the coda of the preceding syllable). For example, the words "subrayar, ciudadrealeño, postromántico" have a trill. Each of these words has a morpheme boundary coinciding with the syllable division before the rhotic consonant; the trills correspond to the word-initial trills found in raya" 'line', "Ciudad Real" "Ciudad Real", and romántico" "Romantic".


title: Spanish phonology

text: The tap is found in words where there is no syllable boundary between the obstruent and the following rhotic consonant, such as "sobre" 'over', "madre" 'mother', "ministro" 'minister'.


title: Spanish phonology

text: In syllable-final position inside a word, the tap is more frequent, but the trill can also occur (especially in emphatic or oratorical style) with no semantic difference—thus "arma" ('weapon') may be either (tap) or (trill).


title: Spanish phonology

text: Morphologically, a word-final rhotic always corresponds to the tapped in related words. Thus the word 'smell' is related to 'smells, smelly' and not to .


title: Spanish phonology

text: When two rhotics occur consecutively across a word or prefix boundary, they result in one trill, so that "da rocas" ('s/he gives rocks') and "dar rocas" ('to give rocks') are either neutralized, or distinguished by a longer trill in the latter phrase.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The tap/trill alternation has prompted a number of authors to postulate a single underlying rhotic; the intervocalic contrast then results from gemination (e.g. "tierra" > 'earth').


title: Spanish phonology

text: The phonemes , , and become voiced before voiced consonants as in "jazmín" ('Jasmine') , "rasgo" ('feature') , and "Afganistán" ('Afghanistan') . There is a certain amount of free variation in this so that "jazmín" can be pronounced or .


title: Spanish phonology

text: Both in casual and in formal speech, there is no phonemic contrast between voiced and voiceless consonants placed in syllable-final position. The merged phoneme is typically pronounced as a relaxed, voiced fricative or approximant, although a variety of other realizations are also possible. So the clusters -"bt"- and -"pt"- in the words "obtener" and "optimista" are pronounced exactly the same way:


title: Spanish phonology

text: Similarly, the spellings "-dm-" and "-tm-" are often merged in pronunciation, as well as -"gd"- and -"cd"-:


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish has five phonemic vowels, , , , and (the same ones that are found in Asturian-Leonese, Aragonese, and also in Basque). There is no phonemic distinction between the close-mid and open-mid vowels that is found in Catalan, French, Italian and Portuguese. There is, however, an alternation between the plain mid vowels and the opening diphthongs (with occurring instead of in the word-initial position) that is similar to the distinction between the close and the open in the aformentioned languages; compare "heló" 'it froze' and "tostó" 'he toasted' with "hiela" 'it freezes' and "tuesto" 'I toast'. The diphthongal regularly correspond to the open in Portuguese cognates; compare "siete" 'seven' and "fuerte" 'strong' with the Portuguese cognates "sete" and "forte" , meaning the same.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Nevertheless, there are some distributional gaps or rarities. For instance, an unstressed close vowel in the final syllable of a word is rare.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Because of substratal Quechua, at least some speakers from southern Colombia down through Peru can be analyzed to have only three vowel phonemes , as the close are continually confused with the mid , resulting in pronunciations such as for "dulzura" ('sweetness'). When Quechua-dominant bilinguals have in their phonemic inventory, they realize them as , which are heard by outsiders as variants of . Both of those features are viewed as strongly non-standard by other speakers.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal, e.g. "cinco" ('five').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Arguably, Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish have ten phonemic vowels, with each of the above vowels paired by a lowered or fronted and lengthened version, e.g. "la madre" ('the mother') vs. "las madres" ('the mothers'). However, these are more commonly analyzed as allophones triggered by an underlying that is subsequently deleted.


title: Spanish phonology

text: There is no agreement among scholars on how many vowel allophones Spanish has; an often postulated number is five .


title: Spanish phonology

text: Some scholars, however, state that Spanish has "eleven" allophones: the close and mid vowels have close and open allophones, whereas appears in front , central and back variants. These symbols appear only in the narrowest variant of phonetic transcription; in broader variants, only the symbols are used, and that is the convention adopted in the rest of this article.


title: Spanish phonology

text: According to Eugenio Martínez Celdrán, however, systematic classification of Spanish allophones is impossible due to the fact that their occurrence varies from speaker to speaker and from region to region. According to him, the exact degree of openness of Spanish vowels depends not so much on the phonetic environment, but rather on various external factors accompanying speech.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish has six falling diphthongs and eight rising diphthongs. While many diphthongs are historically the result of a recategorization of vowel sequences (hiatus) as diphthongs, there is still lexical contrast between diphthongs and hiatus. There are also some lexical items that vary amongst speakers and dialects between hiatus and diphthong: words like ('biologist') with a potential diphthong in the first syllable and words like with a stressed or pretonic sequence of and a vowel vary between a diphthong and hiatus. hypothesize that this is because vocalic sequences are longer in these positions.


title: Spanish phonology

text: In addition to synalepha across word boundaries, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs in fast speech; when this happens, one vowel becomes non-syllabic (unless they are the same vowel, in which case they fuse together) as in ('poet') and ('teacher'). Similarly, the relatively rare diphthong may be reduced to in certain unstressed contexts, as in , . In the case of verbs like ('relieve'), diphthongs result from the suffixation of normal verbal morphology onto a stem-final (that is, would be || + ||). This contrasts with verbs like ('to extend') which, by their verbal morphology, seem to have stems ending in . Spanish also possesses triphthongs like and, in dialects that use a second person plural conjugation, , , and (e.g. , 'ox'; , 'you change'; , '(that) you may change'; and , 'you ascertain').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Non-syllabic and can be reduced to , , as in ('beatitude') and ('poetess'), respectively; similarly, non-syllabic can be completely elided, as in (e.g. 'right away'). The frequency (though not the presence) of this phenomenon differs amongst dialects, with a number having it occur rarely and others exhibiting it always.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish is usually considered a syllable-timed language. Even so, stressed syllables can be up to 50% longer in duration than non-stressed syllables. Although pitch, duration, and loudness contribute to the perception of stress, pitch is the most important in isolation.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Primary stress occurs on the penultima (the next-to-last syllable) 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, stress falls on the ultima and antepenultima (third-to-last syllable).


title: Spanish phonology

text: Nonverbs are generally stressed on the penultimate syllable for vowel-final words and on the final syllable of consonant-final words. Exceptions are marked orthographically (see below), whereas regular words are underlyingly phonologically marked with a stress feature [+stress].


title: Spanish phonology

text: In addition to exceptions to these tendencies, particularly learned words from Greek and Latin that feature antepenultimate stress, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as "sábana" ('sheet') and "sabana" ('savannah'), as well as "límite" ('boundary'), "limite" ('[that] he/she limit') and "limité" ('I limited').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Lexical stress may be marked orthographically with an acute accent ("ácido", "distinción", etc.). This is done according to the mandatory stress rules of Spanish orthography, which are similar to the tendencies above (differing with words like "distinción") and are defined so as to unequivocally indicate where the stress lies in a given written word. An acute accent may also be used to differentiate homophones, such as "mi" (my), and "mí" (me). In such cases, the accent is used on the homophone that normally receives greater stress when used in a sentence.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Lexical stress patterns are different between words carrying verbal and nominal inflection: in addition to the occurrence of verbal affixes with stress (something absent in nominal inflection), underlying stress also differs in that it falls on the last syllable of the inflectional stem in verbal words while those of nominal words may have ultimate or penultimate stress. In addition, amongst sequences of clitics suffixed to a verb, the rightmost clitic may receive secondary stress, e.g. "búscalo" ('look for it').


title: Spanish phonology

text: A number of alternations exist in Spanish that reflect diachronic changes in the language and arguably reflect morphophonological processes rather than strictly phonological ones. For instance, a number of words alternate between and or and , with the latter in each pair appearing before a front vowel:


title: Spanish phonology

text: Note that the conjugation of most verbs with a stem ending in or does "not" show this alternation; these segments do not turn into or before a front vowel:


title: Spanish phonology

text: There are also alternations between unstressed and and stressed (or , when initial) and respectively:


title: Spanish phonology

text: Likewise, in a very small number of words, alternations occur between the palatal sonorants and their corresponding alveolar sonorants ("doncella"/"doncel" 'maiden'/'youth', "desdeñar"/"desdén" 'to scorn'/'scorn'). This alternation does not appear in verbal or nominal inflection (that is, the plural of "doncel" is "donceles", not *"doncelles"). This is the result of geminated and of Vulgar Latin (the origin of and , respectively) degeminating and then depalatalizing in coda position. Words without any palatal-alveolar allomorphy are the result of historical borrowings.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Other alternations include ~ ("anexo" vs "anejo"), ~ ("nocturno" vs "noche"). Here the forms with and are historical borrowings and the forms with and forms are inherited from Vulgar Latin.


title: Spanish phonology

text: There are also pairs that show antepenultimate stress in nouns and adjectives but penultimate stress in synonymous verbs ("vómito" 'vomit' vs. "vomito" 'I vomit').


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish syllable structure consists of an optional syllable onset, consisting of one or two consonants; an obligatory syllable nucleus, consisting of a vowel optionally preceded by and/or followed by a semivowel; and an optional syllable coda, consisting of one or two consonants. The following restrictions apply:


title: Spanish phonology

text: In many dialects, a coda cannot be more than one consonant (one of n, r, l or s) in informal speech. Realizations like , , are very common, and in many cases, they are allowed even in formal speech.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Because of the phonotactic constraints, an epenthetic is inserted before word-initial clusters beginning with (e.g. "escribir" 'to write') but not word-internally ("transcribir" 'to transcribe'), thereby moving the initial to a separate syllable. The epenthetic is pronounced even when it is not reflected in spelling (e.g. the surname of Carlos Slim is pronounced ). While Spanish words undergo word-initial epenthesis, cognates in Latin and Italian do not:


title: Spanish phonology

text: In addition, Spanish adopts foreign words starting with pre-nasalized consonants with an epenthetic . , a prominent last name from Equatorial Guinea, is pronounced as .


title: Spanish phonology

text: When adapting word-final complex codas that show rising sonority, an epenthetic is inserted between the two consonants. For example, is typically pronounced .


title: Spanish phonology

text: Occasionally Spanish speakers are faced with onset clusters containing elements of equal or near-equal sonority, such as (a German last name, common in parts of South America). Assimilated borrowings usually delete the first element in such clusters, for example 'psychology'. When attempting to pronounce such words for the first time without deleting the first consonant, Spanish speakers insert a short, often devoiced, schwa-like "svarabhakti" vowel between the two consonants.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish syllable structure is phrasal, resulting in syllables consisting of phonemes from neighboring words in combination, sometimes even resulting in elision. The phenomenon is known in Spanish as "enlace". For a brief discussion contrasting Spanish and English syllable structure, see .


title: Spanish phonology

text: Phonological development varies greatly by individual, both those developing regularly and those with delays. However, a general pattern of acquisition of phonemes can be inferred by the level of complexity of their features, i.e. by sound classes. A hierarchy may be constructed, and if a child is capable of producing a discrimination on one level, they will also be capable of making the discriminations of all prior levels.


title: Spanish phonology

text: This hierarchy is based on production only, and is a representation of a child’s capacity to produce a sound, whether that sound is the correct target in adult speech or not. Thus, it may contain some sounds that are not included in the adult phonology, but produced as a result of error.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Spanish-speaking children will accurately produce most segments at a relatively early age. By around three-and-a-half years, they will no longer productively use phonological processes the majority of the time. Some common error patterns (found 10% or more of the time) are cluster reduction, liquid simplification, and stopping. Less common patterns (evidenced less than 10% of the time) include palatal fronting, assimilation, and final consonant deletion.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Typical phonological analyses of Spanish consider the consonants , , and the underlying phonemes and their corresponding approximants , , and allophonic and derivable by phonological rules. However, approximants may be the more basic form because monolingual Spanish-learning children learn to produce the continuant contrast between and before they do the lead voicing contrast between and . (In comparison, English-learning children are able to produce adult-like voicing contrasts for these stops well before age three.) The allophonic distribution of and produced in adult speech is not learned until after age two and not fully mastered even at age four.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The alveolar trill is one of the most difficult sounds to be produced in Spanish and as a result is acquired later in development. Research suggests that the alveolar trill is acquired and developed between the ages of three and six years. Some children acquire an adult-like trill within this period and some fail to properly acquire the trill. The attempted trill sound of the poor trillers is often perceived as a series of taps owing to hyperactive tongue movement during production.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The trill is also very difficult for those learning Spanish as a second language, sometimes taking over a year to produce properly.


title: Spanish phonology

text: One research study found that children acquire medial codas before final codas, and stressed codas before unstressed codas. Since medial codas are often stressed and must undergo place assimilation, greater importance is accorded to their acquisition. Liquid and nasal codas occur word-medially and at the ends of frequently used function words, so they are often acquired first.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Research suggests that children overgeneralize stress rules when they are reproducing novel Spanish words and that they have a tendency to stress the penultimate syllables of antepenultimately stressed words, to avoid a violation of nonverb stress rules that they have acquired. Many of the most frequent words heard by children have irregular stress patterns or are verbs, which violate nonverb stress rules. This complicates stress rules until ages three to four, when stress acquisition is essentially complete, and children begin to apply these rules to novel irregular situations.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Some features, such as the pronunciation of voiceless stops , have no dialectal variation. However, there are numerous other features of pronunciation that differ from dialect to dialect.


title: Spanish phonology

text: One notable dialectal feature is the merging of the voiced palatal approximant (as in "ayer") with the palatal lateral approximant (as in "calle") into one phoneme ("yeísmo"), with losing its laterality. While the distinction between these two sounds has traditionally been a feature of Castilian Spanish, this merger has spread throughout most of Spain in recent generations, particularly outside of regions in close linguistic contact with Catalan and Basque. In Spanish America, most dialects are characterized by this merger, with the distinction persisting mostly in parts of Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and northwestern Argentina. In the other parts of Argentina, the phoneme resulting from the merger is realized as ; and in Buenos Aires the sound has recently been devoiced to among the younger population; the change is spreading throughout Argentina.


title: Spanish phonology

text: Speakers in northern and central Spain, including the variety prevalent on radio and television, have both and ("distinción", 'distinction'). However, speakers in Latin America, Canary Islands and some parts of southern Spain have only ("seseo"), which in southernmost Spain is pronounced and not ("ceceo").


title: Spanish phonology

text: In some dialects, may become the approximant in the syllable coda (e.g. "doscientos" 'two hundred'). In southern dialects in Spain, "lowland" dialects in the Americas, and in the Canary Islands, it debuccalizes to in final position (e.g. "niños" 'children'), or before another consonant (e.g. "fósforo" 'match') so the change occurs in the coda position in a syllable. In Spain, this was originally a southern feature, but it is now expanding rapidly to the north.


title: Spanish phonology

text: From an autosegmental point of view, the phoneme in Madrid is defined only by its "voiceless" and "fricative" features. Thus, the point of articulation is not defined and is determined from the sounds following it in the word or sentence. In Madrid, the following realizations are found: > and > . In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for appears to be "voiceless"; it may lose its oral articulation entirely to become or even a geminate with the following consonant ( or from 'same'). In Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish, word-final , and regularly weaken, and the preceding vowel is lowered and lengthened:


title: Spanish phonology

text: A subsequent process of vowel harmony takes place so "lejos" ('far') is , "tenéis" ('you [plural] have') is and "tréboles" ('clovers') is or .


title: Spanish phonology

text: Southern European Spanish (Andalusian Spanish, Murcian Spanish, etc.) and several lowland dialects in Latin America (such as those from the Caribbean, Panama, and the Atlantic coast of Colombia) exhibit more extreme forms of simplification of coda consonants:


title: Spanish phonology

text: The dropped consonants appear when additional suffixation occurs (e.g. "compases" 'beats', "venían" 'they were coming', "comeremos" 'we will eat'). Similarly, a number of coda assimilations occur:


title: Spanish phonology

text: The neutralization of syllable-final , , and is widespread in most dialects (with e.g. "Pepsi" being pronounced ). It does not face as much stigma as other neutralizations, and may go unnoticed.


title: Spanish phonology

text: The deletions and neutralizations show variability in their occurrence, even with the same speaker in the same utterance, so nondeleted forms exist in the underlying structure. The dialects may not be on the path to eliminating coda consonants since deletion processes have been existing for more than four centuries. argues that it is the result of speakers acquiring multiple phonological systems with uneven control like that of second language learners.


title: Spanish phonology

text: In Standard European Spanish, the voiced obstruents before a pause are devoiced and laxed to , as in "club ('[social] club'), "sed ('thirst'), "zigzag" . However, word-final is rare, and even more so. They are restricted mostly to loanwords and foreign names, such as the first name of former Real Madrid sports director Predrag Mijatović, which is pronounced ; and after another consonant, the voiced obstruent may even be deleted, as in "iceberg", pronounced .


title: Spanish phonology

text: The fricative may also appear in borrowings from other languages, such as Nahuatl and English. In addition, the affricates and also occur in Nahuatl borrowings. That said, the onset cluster is permitted in most of Latin America, the Canaries, and the northwest of Spain, and the fact that it is pronounced in the same amount of time as the other voiceless stop + lateral clusters and support an analysis of the sequence as a cluster rather than an affricate in Mexican Spanish.


title: Spanish phonology

text: This sample is an adaptation of Aesop's "El Viento del Norte y el Sol" (The North Wind and the Sun) read by a man from Northern Mexico born in the late 1980s. As usual in Mexican Spanish, and are not present.


title: Spanish phonology

text: El Viento del Norte y el Sol discutían por saber quién era el más fuerte de los dos. Mientras discutían, se acercó un viajero cubierto en un cálido abrigo. Entonces decidieron que el más fuerte sería quien lograse despojar al viajero de su abrigo. El Viento del Norte empezó, soplando tan fuerte como podía, pero entre más fuerte soplaba, el viajero más se arropaba. Entonces, el Viento desistió. Se llegó el turno del Sol, quien comenzó a brillar con fuerza. Esto hizo que el viajero sintiera calor y por ello se quitó su abrigo. Entonces el Viento del Norte tuvo que reconocer que el Sol era el más fuerte de los dos.


title: Smoking age

text: The smoking age is the minimum legal age required to purchase or use tobacco products. Most countries have laws that forbid sale of tobacco products to persons younger than certain ages, usually the age of majority.


title: Smoking age

text: Since 2012, various jurisdictions throughout the world have legalized cannabis for recreational use. In Mexico, Uruguay and cannabis-legal jurisdictions in the United States, the legal age to possess or purchase cannabis is identical to the tobacco purchase age (18 in Mexico and Uruguay and 21 in the United States). In Canada, the legal age to possess or purchase cannabis is 19 in all provinces and territories except Alberta (18) and Quebec (21). There are therefore three Canadian provinces (Manitoba, Quebec and Saskatchewan) and two territories (the Northwest Territories and Yukon) where the age to purchase tobacco is lower than the age to possess and purchase cannabis, and one province (Prince Edward Island) where the tobacco purchase age is higher. Prior to December 2019, when the United States raised its tobacco purchase age to 21 in all states and territories, several U.S. states had tobacco purchase ages lower than their cannabis possession and purchase ages.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and the beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran Period's status as an official geological period was ratified in 2004 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), making it the first new geological period declared in 120 years.


title: Ediacaran

text: Although the period takes its name from the Ediacara Hills where geologist Reg Sprigg first discovered fossils of the eponymous Ediacaran biota in 1946, the type section is located in the bed of the Enorama Creek within Brachina Gorge in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, at .


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran marks the first appearance of widespread multicellular fauna following the end of Snowball Earth glaciation events, the so-called Ediacaran biota, which is represented by now-extinct relatively simple animal phyla such as Proarticulata (bilaterians with articulation including "Dickinsonia" and "Spriggina"), Petalonamae (sea pen-like animals including "Charnia"), Disc-shaped forms (radial-shaped animals including "Cyclomedusa") and Trilobozoa (animals with tri-radial symmetry including "Tribrachidium"). Most of those organisms appeared during or after the Avalon explosion event 575 million years ago and died out during an End-Ediacaran extinction event 539 million years ago. Some modern groups of animals also appeared during this period, including cnidarians and early bilaterians such as Xenacoelomorpha. Mollusc-like "Kimberella" also lived during Ediacaran. Fossilized organisms with shells or skeletons were yet to evolve in the Cambrian, the superseding period of the Phanerozoic eon.


title: Ediacaran

text: The supercontinent Pannotia formed and broke apart by the end of the period. The Ediacaran also witnessed several glaciation events, such as the Gaskiers and Baykonurian glaciations. The Shuram excursion also occurred during this period, but its glacial origin is unlikely.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran Period overlaps but is shorter than the Vendian Period, a name that was earlier, in 1952, proposed by Russian geologist and paleontologist Boris Sokolov. The Vendian concept was formed stratigraphically top-down, and the lower boundary of the Cambrian became the upper boundary of the Vendian.


title: Ediacaran

text: Paleontological substantiation of this boundary was worked out separately for the siliciclastic basin (base of the Baltic Stage of the Eastern European Platform) and for the carbonate basin (base of the Tommotian stage of the Siberian Platform).


title: Ediacaran

text: The lower boundary of the Vendian was suggested to be defined at the base of the Varanger (Laplandian) tillites.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Vendian in its type area consists of large subdivisions such as Laplandian, Redkino, Kotlin and Rovno regional stages with the globally traceable subdivisions and their boundaries, including its lower one.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Redkino, Kotlin and Rovno regional stages have been substantiated in the type area of the Vendian on the basis of the abundant organic-walled microfossils, megascopic algae, metazoan body fossils and ichnofossils.


title: Ediacaran

text: The lower boundary of the Vendian could have a biostratigraphic substantiation as well taking into consideration the worldwide occurrence of the Pertatataka assemblage of giant acanthomorph acritarchs.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran Period (c. 635–538.8 Mya) represents the time from the end of global Marinoan glaciation to the first appearance worldwide of somewhat complicated trace fossils ("Treptichnus pedum" (Seilacher, 1955)).


title: Ediacaran

text: Although the Ediacaran Period does contain soft-bodied fossils, it is unusual in comparison to later periods because its beginning is not defined by a change in the fossil record. Rather, the beginning is defined at the base of a chemically distinctive carbonate layer that is referred to as a "cap carbonate", because it caps glacial deposits.


title: Ediacaran

text: This bed is characterized by an unusual depletion of C that indicates a sudden climatic change at the end of the Marinoan ice age. The lower global boundary stratotype section (GSSP) of the Ediacaran is at the base of the cap carbonate (Nuccaleena Formation), immediately above the Elatina diamictite in the Enorama Creek section, Brachina Gorge, Flinders Ranges, South Australia.


title: Ediacaran

text: The GSSP of the upper boundary of the Ediacaran is the lower boundary of the Cambrian on the SE coast of Newfoundland approved by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a preferred alternative to the base of the Tommotian Stage in Siberia which was selected on the basis of the ichnofossil "Treptichnus pedum" (Seilacher, 1955). In the history of stratigraphy it was the first case of usage of bioturbations for the System boundary definition.


title: Ediacaran

text: Nevertheless, the definitions of the lower and upper boundaries of the Ediacaran on the basis of chemostratigraphy and ichnofossils are disputable.


title: Ediacaran

text: Cap carbonates generally have a restricted geographic distribution (due to specific conditions of their precipitation) and usually siliciclastic sediments laterally replace the cap carbonates in a rather short distance but cap carbonates do not occur above every tillite elsewhere in the world.


title: Ediacaran

text: The C-isotope chemostratigraphic characteristics obtained for contemporaneous cap carbonates in different parts of the world may be variable in a wide range owing to different degrees of secondary alteration of carbonates, dissimilar criteria used for selection of the least altered samples, and, as far as the C-isotope data are concerned, due to primary lateral variations of δ C in the upper layer of the ocean.


title: Ediacaran

text: Furthermore, Oman presents in its stratigraphic record a large negative carbon isotope excursion, within the Shuram Formation that is clearly away from any glacial evidence strongly questioning systematic association of negative δ C excursion and glacial events. Also, the Shuram excursion is prolonged and is estimated to last for ~9.0 Myrs.


title: Ediacaran

text: As to the "Treptichnus pedum", a reference ichnofossil for the lower boundary of the Cambrian, its usage for the stratigraphic detection of this boundary is always risky, because of the occurrence of very similar trace fossils belonging to the Treptichnids group well below the level of "T. pedum" in Namibia, Spain and Newfoundland, and possibly, in the western United States. The stratigraphic range of "T. pedum" overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, and probably in Spain.


title: Ediacaran

text: The Ediacaran Period is not yet formally subdivided, but a proposed scheme recognises an Upper Ediacaran whose base corresponds with the Gaskiers glaciation, a Terminal Ediacaran Stage starting around , a preceding stage beginning around 557 Ma with the earliest widespread Ediacaran biota fossils; two proposed schemes differ on whether the lower strata should be divided into an Early and Middle Ediacaran or not, because it's not clear whether the Shuram excursion (which would divide the Early and Middle) is a separate event from the Gaskiers, or whether the two events are correlated.


title: Ediacaran

text: The dating of the rock type section of the Ediacaran Period in South Australia has proven uncertain due to lack of overlying igneous material. Therefore, the age range of 635 to 538.8 million years is based on correlations to other countries where dating has been possible. The base age of approximately 635 million years is based on U–Pb (uranium–lead) and Re–Os (rhenium–osmium) dating from Africa, China, North America, and Tasmania.


title: Ediacaran

text: The fossil record from the Ediacaran Period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms (with specialized tissues), the most common types of which resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags. "Auroralumina" was a cnidarian.


title: Ediacaran

text: Most members of the Ediacaran biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and their relationship even with the immediately following lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret. More than 100 genera have been described, and well known forms include "Arkarua", "Charnia", "Dickinsonia", "Ediacaria", "Marywadea", "Cephalonega", "Pteridinium", and "Yorgia". However, despite the overall enigmaticness of most Ediacaran organisms, some fossils identifiable as hard-shelled agglutinated foraminifera are known from latest Ediacaran sediments of western Siberia.


title: Ediacaran

text: Four different biotic intervals are known in the Ediacaran, each being characterised by the prominence of a unique ecology and faunal assemblage. The first spanned from 635 to around 575 Ma and was dominated by acritarchs known as large ornamented Ediacaran microfossils. The second spanned from around 575 to 560 Ma and was characterised by the Avalon biota. The third spanned from 560 to 550 Ma; its biota has been dubbed the White Sea biota due to many fossils from this time being found along the coasts of the White Sea. The fourth lasted from 550 to 539 Ma and is known as the interval of the Nama biotic assemblage.


title: Ediacaran

text: There is evidence for a mass extinction during this period from early animals changing the environment, dating to the same time as the transition between the White Sea and the Nama-type biotas. Alternatively, this mass extinction has also been theorised to have been the result of an anoxic event.


title: Ediacaran

text: The relative proximity of the Moon at this time meant that tides were stronger and more rapid than they are now. The day was 21.9 ± 0.4 hours, and there were 13.1 ± 0.1 synodic months/year and 400 ± 7 solar days/year.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Carl Joseph Yvon Ouellet (born December 30, 1967) is a Canadian professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, PCO (originally a contraction of his long-term former ring name Pierre Carl Ouellet, but now standing for Perfect Creation One). He is currently signed to Impact Wrestling, where he is a former member of the Honor No More stable.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling as one-half of The Quebecers/The Amazing French Canadians with Jacques Rougeau (with whom he held the WWF Tag Team Championship on three occasions). After retiring in 2011, Ouellet returned to the ring in 2016, undergoing a career renaissance with the gimmick of "part beast-turned-man, part old-time strongman". From 2018 to 2021, Ouellet wrestled for Ring of Honor (ROH), where he was a ROH World Champion, ROH World Tag Team Champion, and ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion. Other promotions Ouellet has wrestled for include Extreme Championship Wrestling, the International Wrestling Association, and Major League Wrestling.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Carl Ouellet debuted in 1987. He worked on the independent circuit - at one point forming a tag team with "Evil" Eddie Watts known as "The Super Bees".


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In January 1993, Ouellet began wrestling for the International Wrestling Association in Puerto Rico. While working in Puerto Rico, he was offered a tryout with the World Wrestling Federation.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In 1993, Ouellet joined the World Wrestling Federation as the tag team partner of Jacques Rougeau. As one half of The Quebecers, Ouellet adopted the name "Pierre" and dressed like Mounties. This was a reference to Jacques's previous gimmick, "The Mountie", which had been banned in Canada due to concern that the heelish character of The Mountie would lead to children mistrusting legitimate Mounties. The Quebecers sang their own entrance theme, in which they stated that, contrary to appearances, "We're not the Mounties". Later in the year they were joined by manager, Johnny Polo.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: The Quebecers held the WWF Tag Team Championship on three occasions. On September 13, 1993, they defeated the Steiner Brothers for the tag titles (under "Province of Quebec Rules", which provided for titles changing hands on disqualifications). They were defeated by the 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty on January 10, 1994, and again by Men on a Mission on March 29 (during a tour of England) but each time regained the titles within days. They lost the belts a third and final time to The Headshrinkers on the May 2 episode of "Monday Night Raw" in Burlington, Vermont. After losing to The Headshrinkers at a house show in July, that led to Pierre's sneak attack on Jacques. The feud culminated in the former partners' wrestling one another in Rougeau's retirement match on October 21, 1994, in Montreal, main-eventing a sold-out house show. After Jacques retired, Ouellet worked in house shows.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In March 1995, Ouellet was repackaged as "Jean-Pierre LaFitte", the supposed descendant of the pirate Jean LaFitte. As a pirate he wore an eyepatch over his blind right eye. He engaged in a three-month feud with Bret Hart and stole the mirrored sunglasses that Hart handed to fans at ringside. After LaFitte stole Hart's trademark leather jacket, the enemies faced one another at In Your House 3 on September 24, 1995, where Hart forced Ouellet to submit by using the Sharpshooter. In his "Wrestling Observer Newsletter", Dave Meltzer described this pay-per-view match as the "show saver" and an "excellent match." Hart later recalled, "In a lot of ways, I loved working with guys like him. He was a guy, that when he threw you in the ropes, he really threw you in the rope...everything he did was power, and at the same time he was a very safe guy... He took a lot of pride in his work, he really wanted to have a great match with me...And so we worked really hard, and it was a really good match."


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet's WWF career came to an end after an alleged legit conflict with The Kliq, a backstage group including main-event wrestlers Shawn Michaels and Diesel. According to Shane Douglas, who was working with the company at that time, a match pitting LaFitte against Nash, then the WWF Champion, in a house show in LaFitte's hometown Montreal was booked to end without a clean finish, with Lafitte winning by either DQ or countout, enabling the WWF to return to Montreal for a rematch at a later time. However, due to backstage politicking by Shawn Michaels the booking was reversed into a clean pinfall for Diesel. In turn, LaFitte refused to be pinned by Diesel and the match ended in a double-countout. Due to his refusal to put Diesel over, LaFitte was buried due to the Kliq's influence. Ouellet left the WWF in November 1995.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In September 1996, Ouellet reunited with Jacques Rougeau and moved to World Championship Wrestling (WCW), where the duo was known as The Amazing French Canadians. They wore more traditional wrestling gear, but failed to duplicate the success they had found in the WWF. They had the distinction of losing to Arn Anderson and Steve "Mongo" McMichael in Anderson's last match.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: The Amazing French Canadians were managed by Col. Robert Parker (who began dressing in a French Foreign Legion uniform), and they began feuding with Harlem Heat as a result of tension between Parker and Harlem Heat's manager, Sister Sherri. After Harlem Heat defeated the Amazing French Canadians at World War 3 on November 24, 1996, Sherri won the right to fight Parker for three minutes. Parker was beaten down by Sherri, but the rivals later reconciled and fell in love with one another.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In April 1997, Ouellet won a 'patch match' against The Giant in a house show in Montreal via disqualification. He made his final appearance with WCW on the June 16, 1997 episode of "Nitro", with he and Jacques losing to Harlem Heat.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: From September to December 1997, Ouellet wrestled for the Catch Wrestling Association in Hanover and Bremen in Germany. Wrestling as "Jean-Pierre LaFitte", he competed in both the Catch Cup and the International Catch Cup.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Along with Jacques, Ouellet was rehired by the WWF in January 1998. Ouellet competed in the Brawl for All tournament, but lost in the first round to "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. The Quebecers took part in the tag team battle royal at WrestleMania XIV, but disbanded once again soon afterward. Along with other WWF employees such as Bart Gunn and Vader, he worked for All Japan Pro Wrestling as part of a talent loan, and spent time in the WWF's Memphis based developmental territory, Power Pro Wrestling, where he was known as "Kris Kannonball". He left the WWF once more when his contract expired in January 2000, unhappy with the way he was being used.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet began working for Extreme Championship Wrestling in mid-2000, squashing jobbers for several weeks before losing to Justin Credible in a match for Credible's ECW World Heavyweight Championship.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet and Rougeau had a second run in WCW in August 2000, briefly joining Team Canada at the New Blood Rising pay-per-view. Rougeau—who had additionally served as a guest referee in Lance Storm's win over Mike Awesome—left immediately afterwards, upset with the WCW creative team's plans for him, while Ouellet worked two more dates in Canada and was awarded the WCW Hardcore Championship by Storm on August 14 as Storm held three different titles at the same time. He lost the title that same night to Norman Smiley.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Due to working visa issues, Ouellet could not work in the US, and had to be released back to Canada soon after.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Between 2000 and 2003, Ouellet appeared with Rougeau's International Wrestling 2000 promotion. He headlined an event in the Verdun Auditorium in Montreal on December 29, 2000, facing King Kong Bundy in front of an audience of 4,000. In the summer of 2003 Ouellet decided to begin wrestling in the Quebec area once more.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet returned to the Puerto Rican promotion International Wrestling Association, this time wrestling as Jean-Pierre Laffite. He was brought in by Savio Vega to join his stable, The corporation. Immediately he feuded with then-IWA Intercontinental Champion Ricky Banderas, a feud that lasted around 3 months. He was managed by José Chaparro, another member of Vega's Corporation. At Summer Attitude, after a losing effort to Ricky Banderas. In April 2005 defeated Banderas to win IWA Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship for first time in his career. Lafitte left IWA.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In November 2003, Ouellet debuted in NWA Total Nonstop Action as "X", a masked wrestler who competed primarily in the X Division as he had a feud with Christopher Daniels and Sonjay Dutt. He left after two months.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In February 2005, Ouellet began hosting the French version of "TNA Impact!" from the RDS studios with Marc Blondin, replacing Michel Letourneur. He even had a war of the words against comedian Jean-René Dufort (of "Infoman" fame), to which Dufort responded by adopting the wrestling gimmick "La Punaise Masquée" (The Masked Tick) and "challenging" Ouellet to a match. However, Dufort backed out before the match could take place. In October 2007 he quit the company and was replaced by Sylvain Grenier.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: In the mid-2000s, Ouellet wrestled for the Montreal-based International Wrestling Syndicate and the Hull-based CPW International promotion, under the "Pierre Carl Ouellet" name once again. In October 2007, Ouellet wrestled a dark match for World Wrestling Entertainment under the name of "Carl Ouellet" at the "ECW" / "SmackDown!" tapings. He was defeated by Tommy Dreamer.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: Ouellet also wrestled for All-Star promotions in Britain alongside his friends and tag team partners with Rene Dupree. Ouellet has mainly been working a lot of Tag Team matches with Rene Dupree, Robbie Dynamite, Hannibal and Mikey Whiplash. He defeated Sylvain Grenier in an RDS battle on June 21, 2008, in Hawkesbury, Ontario Canada with Marc Blondin serving as the special referee. In July 2008, Ouellet lost to Charlie Haas on Monday Night Raw in a dark match. In an interview with "Slam! Sports" on August 6, 2008, Ouellet declared that he would like another stint with the WWE. He then defeated long-time rival Kevin Nash on May 30, 2009, at the International Wrestling Syndicate's 10th Anniversary show by making him submit via an armbar.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: On May 21, 2016, Ouellet made his return to professional wrestling at an MWF event, entitled "Collision," in Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada, defeating Jake Matthews, following a cannonball. On November 5, 2017, Ouellet, as "Quebecer" Jean-Pierre Lafitte, defeated Hannibal to win the Great North Wrestling Canadian Championship in Rockland, ON. On May 25, 2018, Ouellet was defeated by Hannibal via disqualification in a Great North Wrestling Championship rematch in Pembroke, ON. Post-match, Ouellet was stripped of the championship for his assault on GNW President, Michael Andrews. Under a new gimmick as a "French Frankenstein" as Ouellet described it, he became a regular name in several independent promotions. On April 2, 2018, Ouellet defeated Walter at Game Changer Wrestling's (GCW) Joey Janela's Spring Break 2 in New Orleans. Ouellet's performance and online footage of his unconventional workout regimen impressed the independent wrestling audience, and led to many higher-profile bookings.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: On June 18, 2018, Ouellet was announced as the first of twenty-four participants for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's (PWG) annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament. At "2018 Battle of Los Angeles - Stage One" on September 15, he made his company debut, losing to Brody King in the Opening Round. Two nights later, at "2018 Battle of Los Angeles - Final Stage", he led a losers' ten-man tag team match, in which Team PCO (Ouellet, Darby Allin, Dan Barry, Jody Fleisch and Puma King) defeated Team DJ Z (DJ Z, Adam Brooks, David Starr, T-Hawk and Timothy Thatcher).


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: On December 1, 2018, Ouellet announced his exclusive signing with Ring of Honor. He debuted for ROH at the December 15 tapings joining up with Marty Scurll and Brody King in a new stable called Villain Enterprises. At Honor Reigns Supreme 2019, Villain Enterprises defeated Silas Young and the Briscoe Brothers. PCO and King would then go on to win the 2019 ROH Tag Wars Tournament during the ROH Road To G1 Supercard tour in February 2019, and on March 15, 2019, he and King defeated the Briscoes to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship for the first time in a Las Vegas street fight at the ROH 17th Anniversary Show. The following night at the "Ring of Honor Wrestling" tapings, PCO, King and Scurll defeated The Kingdom to win the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship, making PCO a double champion within a 24-hour span.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: At the G1 Supercard, PCO and King dropped the ROH World Tag Team Championship to the Guerrillas of Destiny in a winner takes all four-way tag team match also including the Briscoe Brothers and Evil and Sanada, with G.O.D.'s IWGP Tag Team Championship belts also on the line. In a Six Man Tag title defence, PCO would get the winning fall over ROH World Champion Matt Taven, which gave him a future title opportunity.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: On April 27 at the 2019 Crockett Cup event, PCO and King won the eight-team tournament (winning three matches in the same night) to not only win the Crockett Cup Trophy, but also win the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship as well. At War of the Worlds, PCO challenged ROH World Champion Matt Taven for the championship, however he was defeated. The following night, PCO continued his feud with Taven by attacking Taven following his win over Mark Haskins. PCO would then compete in a Four Corner Survival match to determine the #1 contender for the ROH World Championship which was won by Jeff Cobb. At State of the Art, PCO competed in a DEFY or DENY match for the ROH World Championship which was won by Taven. At Death Before Dishonor XVII, PCO defeated Kenny King in a First-round match in the Final Battle ROH World Championship #1 contender tournament. At Glory By Honor XVII, PCO defeated fellow member of Villain Enterprises Marty Scurll in the finals of the tournament to become the #1 contender for the ROH World Championship. At Final Battle, PCO defeated Rush to become the ROH World Champion, in the process once again becoming a double champion in ROH, as well as becoming a world champion for the first time in his career. After his title win, Villain Enterpraises feuded with Rush's La Facción Ingobernable, retaining the World title against Dragon Lee, but losing against Rush on February 29. at Best in the World, PCO and Danhausen defeated The Bouncers (Brian Milonas and Beer City Bruiser).


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: At Hard To Kill, on January 8, 2022, PCO made his return to TNA, now known as Impact Wrestling, appeared along with Matt Taven, Vincent, Mike Bennett, and Maria, attacking Eddie Edwards, Rich Swann, Willie Mack, Heath and Rhino. On January 13, it was revealed that PCO had signed a contract with Impact.on the January 27 episode of Impact Wrestling, PCO defeated Chris Sabin. At No Surrender, Honor No More (Matt Taven, PCO, Mike Bennett, Vincent, and Kenny King) defeated Team Impact (Chris Sabin, Rhino, Rich Swann, Steve Maclin, and Willie Mack) in a 10 man tag team match to remain in Impact. At Sacrifice, PCO lost to Jonah. At Multiverse of Matches, PCO and Moose lost to Josh Alexander and Jonah. On the April 14 episode of Impact Wrestling, PCO lost to Jonah. On April 24 PCO defeated Jonah in a Monsters Ball match in Poughkeepsie NY for a TV episode to be aired on May 5th.


title: Pierre Carl Ouellet

text: On October 20 episode of Impact Wrestling, PCO would turn face by leaving Honor No More attacking his partners after Eddie Edwards quoted, "PCO is nothing but a bitch!"


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhya Range (also known as Vindhyachal) () is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the geological sense. The exact extent of the Vindhyas is loosely defined, and historically, the term covered a number of distinct hill systems in central India, including the one that is now known as the Satpura Range. Today, the term principally refers to the escarpment and its hilly extensions that runs north of and roughly parallel to the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh. Depending on the definition, the range extends up to Gujarat in the west, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the north, and Chhattisgarh in the east.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhyas have a great significance in Indian mythology and history. Several ancient texts mention the Vindhyas as the southern boundary of the "Āryāvarta", the territory of the ancient Indo-Aryan peoples. Although today Indo-Aryan languages are spoken south of the Vindhyas, the range continues to be considered as the traditional boundary between north and south India. The former Vindhya Pradesh was named after the Vindhya Range.


title: Vindhya Range

text: According to the author of a commentary on "Amarakosha", the word Vindhya derives from the Sanskrit word "vaindh" (to obstruct). A mythological story (see below) states that the Vindhyas once obstructed the path of the sun, resulting in this name. Ramayana from Valmiki states that the great mountain Vindhya that was growing incessantly and obstructing the path of the Sun stopped growing any more in obedience to Agastya's words. According to another theory, the name "Vindhya" means "hunter" in Sanskrit, and may refer to the tribal hunter-gatherers inhabiting the region.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhya range is also known as "Vindhyachala" or "Vindhyachal"; the suffix "achala" (Sanskrit) or "achal" (Hindi) refers to a mountain. In the Mahabharata, the range is also referred to as "Vindhyapadaparvata". The Greek geographer Ptolemy called the range Vindius or Ouindion, describing it as the source of Namados (Narmada) and Nanagouna (Tapti) rivers. The "Daksinaparvata" ("Southern Mountain") mentioned in the Kaushitaki Upanishad is also identified with the Vindhyas.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhyas do not form a single range in the proper geological sense: the hills collectively known as the Vindhyas do not lie along an anticlinal or synclinal ridge. The Vindhya range is actually a group of discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments. The term "Vindhyas" is defined by convention, and therefore, the exact definition of the Vindhya range has varied at different times in history.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Earlier, the term "Vindhyas" was used in a wider sense and included a number of hill ranges between the Indo-Gangetic plain and the Deccan Plateau. According to the various definitions mentioned in the older texts, the Vindhyas extend up to Godavari in the south and Ganges in the north.


title: Vindhya Range

text: In certain Puranas, the term Vindhya specifically covers the mountain range located between the Narmada and the Tapti rivers; that is, the one which is now known as the Satpura Range. The Varaha Purana uses the name "Vindhya-pada" ("foot of the Vindhyas") for the Satpura range.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Several ancient Indian texts and inscriptions (e.g. the "Nasik Prasasti" of Gautamiputra Satakarni) mention three mountain ranges in Central India: Vindhya (or "Vindhya proper"), Rksa (also Rksavat or Riksha) and Pariyatra (or Paripatra). The three ranges are included in the seven "Kula Parvatas" ("clan mountains") of Bharatavarsha i.e. India. The exact identification of these three ranges is difficult due to contrasting descriptions in the various texts. For example, the Kurma, Matsya and Brahmanda Puranas mention Vindhya as the source of Tapti; while Vishnu and Brahma Puranas mention the Rksa as its source. Some texts use the term Vindhyas to describe all the hills in Central India.


title: Vindhya Range

text: In one passage, Valmiki's Ramayana describes Vindhya as being situated to the south of Kishkindha (Ramayana IV-46. 17), which is identified with a part of the present-day Karnataka. It further implies that the sea was located just to the south of the Vindhyas, and Lanka was located across this sea. Many scholars have attempted to explain this anomaly in different ways. According to one theory, the term "Vindhyas" covered a number of mountains to the south of the Indo-Aryan territories at the time Ramayana was written. Others, such as Frederick Eden Pargiter, believe that there was another mountain in South India, with the same name. Madhav Vinayak Kibe placed the location of Lanka in Central India.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Barabar Cave inscription of Maukhari Anantavarman mentions the Nagarjuni hill of Bihar as a part of the Vindhyas.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Today, the definition of the Vindhyas is primarily restricted to the Central Indian escarpments, hills and highlands located to the north of the Narmada River. Some of these are actually distinct hill systems.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The western end of the Vindhya range is located in the state of Gujarat, near the state's border with Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, at the eastern side of the Kathiawar peninsula. A series of hills connects the Vindhya extension to the Aravalli Range near Champaner. The Vindhya range rises in height east of Chhota Udaipur.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The principal Vindhya range forms the southern escarpment of the Central Indian upland. It runs roughly parallel to the Naramada river in the east-west direction, forming the southern wall of the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The eastern portion of the Vindhyas comprises multiple chains, as the range divides into branches east of Malwa. A southern chain of Vindhyas runs between the upper reaches of the Son and Narmada rivers to meet the Satpura Range in the Maikal Hills near Amarkantak. A northern chain of the Vindhyas continues eastwards as Bhander Plateau and Kaimur Range, which runs north of the Son River. This extended range runs through what was once Vindhya Pradesh, reaching up to the Kaimur district of Bihar. The branch of the Vindhya range spanning across Bundelkhand is known as the Panna range. Another northern extension (known as the Vindhyachal hills) runs up to Uttar Pradesh, stopping before the shores of Ganga at multiple places, including Vindhyachal and Chunar (Mirzapur District), near Varanasi.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhyan tableland is a plateau that lies to the north of the central part of the range. The Rewa-Panna plateaus are also collectively known as the Vindhya plateau.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Different sources vary on the average elevation of the Vindhyas, depending on their definition of the range. M. C. Chaturvedi mentions the average elevation as . Pradeep Sharma states that the "general elevation" of the Vindhyas is , with the range rarely going over during its extent.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The highest point of the Vindhyas is the Sad-bhawna Shikhar ("Goodwill Peak"), which lies above the sea level. Also known as the Kalumar peak or Kalumbe peak, it lies near Singrampur in the Damoh district, in the area known as Bhanrer or Panna hills. Historical texts include Amarkantak (+) in the Vindhyas, but today, it is considered a part of the Maikal Range, which is considered as an extension of the Satpuras.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhyas are regarded as the traditional geographical boundary between northern and southern India, and have a distinguished status in both mythology and geography of India. In the ancient Indian texts, the Vindhyas are seen as the demarcating line between the territories of the Indo-Aryans and that of the others. The most ancient Hindu texts consider it as the southern boundary of Aryavarta. The Mahabharata mentions that the Nishadas and other Mleccha tribes reside in the forests of the Vindhyas. Although the Indo-Aryan languages (such as Marathi and Konkani) spread to the south of Vindhyas later, the Vindhyas continued to be seen as the traditional boundary between the northern and the southern Indian nations.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Vindhyas appear prominently in the Indian mythological tales. Although the Vindhyas are not very high, historically, they were considered highly inaccessible and dangerous due to dense vegetation and the hostile tribes residing there. In the older Sanskrit texts, such as the Ramayana, they are described as the unknown territory infested with cannibals and demons. The later texts describe the Vindhya range as the residence of fierce form of Shakti (goddess Kali or Durga), who has lived there since slaying the demons. She is described as Vindhyavasini ("Vindhya dweller"), and a temple dedicated to her is located in the Vindhyachal town of Uttar Pradesh. The Mahabharata mentions the Vindhyas as the "eternal abode" of Kali.


title: Vindhya Range

text: According to one legend, the Vindhya mountain once competed with the Mount Meru, growing so high that it obstructed the sun. The sage Agastya then asked Vindhya to lower itself, in order to facilitate his passage across to the south. In reverence for Agastya, the Vindhya lowered its height and promised not to grow until Agastya returned to the north. Agastya settled in the south, and the Vindhya mountain, true to its word, never grew further.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Kishkindha Kanda of Valmiki's Ramayana mentions that Maya built a mansion in the Vindhyas. In "Dashakumaracharita", the King Rajahamsa of Magadha and his ministers create a new colony in the Vindhya forest, after being forced out of their kingdom following a war defeat.


title: Vindhya Range

text: The Vindhyas are one of the only two mountain ranges mentioned in the national anthem of India, the other being the Himalayas.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Several tributaries of the Ganga-Yamuna system originate from the Vindhyas. These include Chambal, Betwa, Dhasan, Ken, Tamsa, Kali Sindh and Parbati. The northern slopes of the Vindhyas are drained by these rivers.


title: Vindhya Range

text: Narmada and Son rivers drain the southern slopes of the Vindhyas. Both these rivers rise in the Maikal hills, which are now defined as an extension of the Satpuras, although several older texts use the term Vindhyas to cover them (see Historical definitions above).


title: Vindhya Range

text: The earliest known multicellular fossils of eukaryotes (filamentous algae) have been discovered from Vindhya basin dating back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago. Shelled creatures are documented to have first evolved at the start of the Cambrian 'explosion of life', about 550 million years ago.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Hikaru Kato Sulu is a fictional character in the "Star Trek" media franchise. A member of the crew in the , Sulu also appears in the , the first six "Star Trek" movies, one episode of "", and in several books, comics, and video games. Originally known simply as "Sulu", his first name, "Hikaru", appeared in a 1981 novel well over a decade after the original series had ended.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Sulu was portrayed by George Takei in the original "Star Trek" series. John Cho assumed the role of the character in both the 2009 film "Star Trek" and its sequels, "Star Trek Into Darkness" and "Star Trek Beyond".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: George Takei recalled Gene Roddenberry wanted the character to represent all of Asia, which symbolized the peace of the "Trek" universe in spite of the numerous wars in the continent. Roddenberry did not want a nationally specific surname, so he looked at a map and saw the Sulu Sea in central Philippines. "He thought, 'Ah, the waters of that sea touch all shores'," the actor recalled, "and that's how my character came to have the name Sulu."


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In the book "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story", the character's name is noted as a pun on the name of vice president of Desilu Studios, Herb Solow.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Novelist Vonda McIntyre first presented "Hikaru" as the character's first name in the novel "The Entropy Effect". McIntyre derived the character's first name from "The Tale of Genji". Although McIntyre was unaware at the time of any controversy surrounding her giving Sulu a first name, editor David Hartwell had to clear the name with Gene Roddenberry and Takei in order to supersede Paramount's objections. However, the name did not become canon until its mention in "Star Trek VI". Peter David has written about making the suggestion to director Nicholas Meyer at the urging of Takei during a visit to the set.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In some Japanese dubs, Commander Sulu's family name is changed to Kato. According to Bernardi, Sulu, being a Filipino noun is not a Japanese name, and would likely be unpronounceable by Japanese speakers as the language has no "l" sound and "u" is silent. Ojaste cites the reason for this as a lack of effort to be culturally accurate by the writers at the time to portray a veritable Japanese character. However, in recent movies, it is only slightly changed; the name スールー (Sūrū, with long vowels) is used, rather than スル (Suru, with short vowels). Although the latter would be a closer transliteration of the name "Sulu", it might sound odd to Japanese audiences because "Suru" with short vowels is the verb "to do" in the Japanese language.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Hikaru Sulu was born in San Francisco, and is of Japanese heritage. His birthdate has not been established definitively, but the book "Star Trek Chronology" by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda speculates that he was 29 at the time of the first season of "Star Trek" (as was the actor himself), putting his birth in the year 2237. He was shown as the USS "Enterprise"'s staff physicist in the pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966).


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: An early Paramount press release described this initial conception of his character as follows: "Physicist Sulu is the trim, soft-spoken chief of the "Enterprise's" Astro Science Department. Frequently it is his assessment of the conditions on unexplored planets that finally determines when and how they will be approached, or if they can be explored at all." However, throughout the rest of the series, he served as third officer and senior helmsman, holding the rank of lieutenant. Throughout the series, Sulu is shown having many interests and hobbies, including gymnastics, botany, fencing, and ancient weaponry. In the episode "The Naked Time" (1966), Spock observes that Sulu "is at heart a swashbuckler out of the 18th century".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: The character is promoted to lieutenant commander some time before "", and to full commander by the time of "". During the first five "Star Trek" movies, he serves as helmsman aboard both the USS "Enterprise" and USS "Enterprise"-A. He is promoted to captain and given command of the USS "Excelsior" three years before the events of "".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: "Star Trek Generations" introduces Hikaru's daughter, Demora Sulu, whose origins are also depicted in Peter David's canon novel "The Captain's Daughter".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: John Cho portrays an alternate Sulu in the 2009 film "Star Trek". J. J. Abrams was concerned about casting a Korean-American as the character, but Takei explained to the director that Sulu was meant to represent all of Asia on the "Enterprise", so Abrams went ahead with Cho. Cho acknowledged that being an Asian-American, "There are certain acting roles that you are never going to get, and one of them is playing a cowboy. Playing Sulu is a realization of that dream—going into space." He cited the masculinity of the character as being important to him, and spent two weeks fight training. Cho suffered an injury to his wrist during filming, although a representative noted it was "no big deal". James Kyson Lee was interested in the part, but because Zachary Quinto was cast as Spock, the producers of the TV show "Heroes" did not want to lose another cast member for three months.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Cho portrays a younger Sulu in the 2009 film, though he is actually older than Takei was when he portrayed the role in the original series; Cho was 36 while Takei was 29. Cho also portrays Sulu in the 2013 sequel "Star Trek Into Darkness", taking up the role of acting captain on the USS "Enterprise" when both Kirk and Spock were absent. At the film's climax Sulu admits to Kirk that he wouldn't mind being a captain, referencing his role as captain of the "USS Excelsior" in the original film series.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In the third film, "Star Trek Beyond", Sulu is portrayed as a gay man with a husband and daughter. Writer Simon Pegg and director Justin Lin made the decision as a nod to original actor George Takei, who had become a prominent LGBT rights activist since portraying the character in the original series. Takei disliked the idea, and attempted to persuade the filmmakers to create a new gay character rather than revealing Sulu as closeted, saying, "Unfortunately, it's a twisting of Gene's creation, to which he put in so much thought." Pegg replied that he felt it was unfortunate that "the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction" had never featured an LGBT character, but that revealing an existing character as gay avoided creating the impression of tokenism. Pegg also said that Sulu had never been closeted, but that his sexuality had simply never come up, and suggested that Roddenberry would have explored LGBT themes in the original series if he had had the opportunity.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Takei reprised the role of Sulu, as part of "Star Trek"s 30th anniversary, in the "" episode "" aired in 1996. In the episode, "Captain" Sulu appears in Tuvok's flashbacks of his time serving aboard the USS "Excelsior", during events depicted in "Star Trek VI". Sulu is also responsible for another future USS "Voyager" crew member (Chakotay) joining Starfleet.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: The non-canon fan production "" episode "World Enough and Time" starred Takei as Captain Sulu on the "Excelsior" recalling a time on the original "Enterprise" when a transporter accident caused him to come back thirty years older and with a daughter, Alana. Demora also appears in this episode, as well as Hikaru's granddaughter (named Alana in his daughter's honour).


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Grant Imahara portrayed Hikaru Sulu in all 11 episodes of the fan film web series "Star Trek Continues".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: The novel "Forged in Fire" depicts an earlier USS "Excelsior" mission prior to Sulu's assuming command of the ship.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: The novelization of "" includes an encounter in 1986 San Francisco intended to be included in the final film but ultimately cut between Sulu and a young Japanese-American boy who asks, "What are you doing here, Uncle Hikaru?" After conversing with the boy and learning his name, Sulu realizes that the boy is his great-great-grandfather. In another part of the novel as he borrows a helicopter to deliver the whale tank materials, it is revealed that Sulu is part Filipino, as he converses about the Philippine People Power Revolution which had just occurred earlier in 1986.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Simon & Schuster Audioworks released three non-canon "Captain Sulu Adventure"s, featuring voice acting by Takei and various others, in the mid-1990s: "Transformations", "Cacophany", and "Envoy".


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: The reference book "Federation: The First 150 Years", by David A. Goodman, contains an audio introduction by Admiral Hikaru Sulu, indicating that at some point Sulu is promoted to admiral, although this is non-canonical.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In the William Shatner "Star Trek" novels, it is revealed that Sulu is elected to an unprecedented three terms as President of the United Federation of Planets.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In the TV show "Scrubs", Turk wants to be married by a priest who looks like Sulu. The priest is actually played by Takei.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Takei reprised the role of Captain Sulu in the PC game "", released in December 2000. The introduction video features Takei, as Captain Sulu on board the USS "Excelsior", describing the outbreak of an interstellar war between several galactic powers as part of his "Captain's Log". Later updates to the game also included several bonus voice-scripted missions, that again featured Takei as Sulu.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In scientific illustrator Jenny Parks' 2017 book "Star Trek Cats", Sulu is depicted as a Japanese Bobtail.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: Robert Justman, co-producer of the original "Star Trek" series, noted that Takei had previously played bad guys, but through "Star Trek" had become one of the first Asian actors to portray an Asian character in a positive light. Justman described him as "the antithesis of the so-called expressionless-unemotional-inscrutable Asian."


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In 2018, CBR ranked Sulu the 17th-best Starfleet character of "Star Trek". In 2018, "TheWrap" placed Sulu as 19th out 39 in a ranking of main cast characters of the "Star Trek" franchise prior to "". In 2016, Sulu was ranked as the 18th most important character of Starfleet within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe by "Wired" magazine.


title: Hikaru Sulu

text: In 2019, Hikaru Sulu was ranked the 9th-sexiest "Star Trek" character by Syfy, In between Hugh Culber (10th) and Jean-Luc Picard (8th).


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: Separation is a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by William Brent Bell, from a screenplay by Nick Amadeus and Josh Braun. It stars Rupert Friend, Mamie Gummer, Madeline Brewer, Violet McGraw, Simon Quarterman, and Brian Cox. The film follows a father who must take care of his daughter, after his wife, who filed for divorce, suddenly dies in an accident, as the two become haunted by a mysterious entity.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: "Separation" was released on April 30, 2021, by Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment. It received mainly negative reviews from critics.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: In October 2018, it was announced Rupert Friend would star in the film, with William Brent Bell directing from a screenplay by Nick Amadeus and Josh Braun. Bell, Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, Russ Posternak, Jesse Korman, Clay Pecorin and Russell Geyser, were announced as producers under their Yale Productions and RainMaker Films banners, respectively. In November 2018, Mamie Gummer, Madeline Brewer, Brian Cox and Violet McGraw joined the cast of the film.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: In March 2021, Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film, and set it for an April 23, 2021, release. It was then pushed back to April 30, 2021.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: The film made $1.8 million from 1,751 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office. It fell 40% in its second weekend to $1.1 million, finishing sixth.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: Audiences surveyed by PostTrak gave the film a 42% positive score, with 27% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: Separation (2021 film)

text: Nick Schager of "Variety" called the film's story "a dull and misogynistic affair that imagines multiple types of women as malevolent fiends who terrorize supposedly sympathetic men", and criticized its script and performances. Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the film "attempts to inject scares into a "Kramer vs. Kramer"-inspired scenario", but "squanders its intriguing setup and terrific performances by devolving into familiar genre tropes." A. A. Dowd of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a D grade, writing: "this bargain-basement thriller approaches both its jack-in-the-box scares and its domestic scenario with the negligence of an unfit parent; it will spook neither the superstitious nor the matrimonially anxious." Brian Tallerico of "RogerEbert.com" gave the film 0/4 stars, calling it "a movie that fails as both a domestic drama and as a horror flick" and "a viciously misogynistic film that feels like the result of a drunk guy at a bar wondering if his ex-wife is so cruel that she would haunt him from beyond the grave."


title: Holland America Line

text: Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States.


title: Holland America Line

text: Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated as a Dutch shipping line, a passenger line, a cargo line and a cruise line operating primarily between the Netherlands and North America. As part of the company's legacy, it was directly involved in the transport of many hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the Netherlands to North America.


title: Holland America Line

text: Holland America Line was founded in 1873, as the Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Dutch-American Steamship Company), in short Holland-Amerika Lijn, a shipping and passenger line. It was headquartered in Rotterdam, in the building which is now the Hotel New York. It provided service from its European base to the Americas over the North Atlantic. The company was formed as a result of the reorganization of an earlier company, Plate, Reuchlin & Co. The company's first ship was the original , which sailed its 15-day maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on October 15, 1872. Other services were started to other new world ports, including Hoboken, Baltimore and South America. Cargo service to New York started in 1909.


title: Holland America Line

text: During the first 25 years, the company carried 400,000 people from Europe to the Americas. Other North American ports were added during the early 20th century.


title: Holland America Line

text: Though transportation and shipping were the primary sources of revenue, in 1895, HAL offered its first vacation cruise. Its second vacation cruise, from New York to Palestine, was first offered in 1910.


title: Holland America Line

text: One notable ship was the elegant 36,000-gross register ton of 1937, it and being the only two liners built in the 1930s to make a profit.


title: Holland America Line

text: At the start of the Second World War, HAL had 25 ships; nine remained at war's end. At the beginning of the war, the "Westernland" acquired from the Red Star Line in 1939, berthed at Falmouth, England, became the seat of the Dutch government. The "Nieuw Amsterdam" sailed half a million miles transporting 400,000 military personnel. After the war, the shipping line was instrumental in transporting a massive wave of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada and elsewhere.


title: Holland America Line

text: Another notable ship during the post-war period was the of 1959, one of the first North Atlantic ships equipped for two-class transatlantic crossing and one-class luxury cruising.


title: Holland America Line

text: By the late 1960s, the golden era of transatlantic passenger ships had been ended by the introduction of transatlantic jet air travel. HAL ended transatlantic service during the early 1970s, leaving the North Atlantic passenger trade for Cunard's "Queen Elizabeth 2".


title: Holland America Line

text: In 1973, it sold its cargo shipping division, which continued to operate freight liner services with freighters, a Lighter aboard ship ('LASH' ship, mv Bilderdijk) and then container ships under the trade name of Incotrans, with headquarters in Rotterdam, with some of its North American services operated in partnership with the French shipping line Compagnie Générale Maritime.


title: Holland America Line

text: It ceased operating as a Dutch line in 1989, when it was purchased by Carnival for 1.2 billion guilders (€530 million). The proceeds were put into an investment company (HAL Investments), the majority of which is owned by the van der Vorm family.


title: Holland America Line

text: In 1989, the Holland America Line was purchased by Carnival Corp, thus becoming an American owned cruise line headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States.


title: Holland America Line

text: In the summer of 2011, did two transatlantic crossings, the first traditional transatlantic runs made by the line in more than 40 years.


title: Holland America Line

text: Beginning in September 2012, "Rotterdam" was based year-round out of Rotterdam, sailing to Europe, the Caribbean, as well as Asia, before returning to more varied itineraries and home ports by 2016.


title: Holland America Line

text: The line currently operates five different classes of ship: the smaller and older S-class vessels, the slightly newer and larger R class, the , the , and the newest and largest Pinnacle class.


title: Holland America Line

text: All HAL ships have a dark blue hull with white superstructure, with the company's logo featured prominently on the functional smoke stacks.


title: Holland America Line

text: On October 26, 2012, it was announced that a memorandum of agreement had been signed with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the construction of a 2,660-passenger ship for Holland America Line scheduled for delivery in spring 2016. The MS "Koningsdam", which became a new class of vessel for the line (The Pinnacle Class), and the first new Holland America ship since the , delivered in 2010. Also noted was that the addition of new ships would maintain passenger capacity if some of the older Carnival Corporation ships are sold.


title: Holland America Line

text: The Holland America Group of HAL and Princess Cruises have a letter of understanding to buy the Yukon White Pass Railways from Skagway to the US-Canadian border. The purchase closed July 31, 2018.


title: Holland America Line

text: On July 15, 2020, it was announced by Holland America that the , , "Rotterdam", and "Amsterdam" were sold to two undisclosed buyers. The ships were sold in pairs, with the "Maasdam" and "Veendam" transferring to one company in August 2020, while the "Amsterdam" and "Rotterdam" moved to another company in fall 2020. One pair went to a new cruise brand and the other to an existing brand.


title: Holland America Line

text: Most cruise lines suspended their sailings because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 6 January 2021, all Holland America sailings were cancelled to at least 30 April 2021, according to an industry news item. That report listed no specific sailings for Holland America prior to the first week of June 2021.


title: Holland America Line

text: Holland America's parent company, Carnival Corporation & plc, currently owns 2 ex-Holland America Line ships operated by Marella Cruises. Both the and the sailed for Holland America as the "Noordam" (1984) and "Nieuw Amsterdam" (1983) before being transferred to the Marella fleet in 2005 and 2003, respectively. Marella Spirit was operated by Louis Cruises under sub-charter to Marella until 2018, when she was sold for scrap. Her sister ship, the Marella Celebration, still remains in operation. The was built as "Homeric" in 1986 before moving to Holland America as "Westerdam" in 1988.


title: Holland America Line

text: When Carnival Corporation acquired Costa Cruises in 2000, she was then transferred to the Costa fleet as "Costa Europa" in 2002. She has since been under charter to Marella since 2010. It was announced on May 19, 2014 that both the "Statendam" and "Ryndam" would be transferred to P&O Cruises Australia fleet.


title: 2021 UEFA Europa League Final

text: The 2021 UEFA Europa League Final was the final match of the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League, the 50th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 12th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. It was played on 26 May 2021 at the Stadion Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland, between Spanish club Villarreal and English club Manchester United.


title: 2021 UEFA Europa League Final

text: The final was originally scheduled to be played at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium in Seville, Spain. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final to Cologne, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Gdańsk instead hosting the 2021 final, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.


title: 2021 UEFA Europa League Final

text: Villarreal won the match 11–10 on penalties following a 1–1 draw after extra time, thus winning its first trophy in the competition. As winners, Villarreal earned the right to play against the winners of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League, Chelsea, in the 2021 UEFA Super Cup. They also qualified for the group stage of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League.


title: 2021 UEFA Europa League Final

text: "In the following table, finals until 2009 were in the UEFA Cup era, since 2010 were in the UEFA Europa League era."