If you ever wonder about the occupations given here after a person’s name, in the year files and elsewhere, here’s some clarification over the matter.
The idea has been to see the chronology - that this site heavily leans upon - even in the small place allocated to each person in the year files. We go from youth to seniority. From relatively easy jobs to ones requiring more skill and/or more experience and maturity. So we mention first the first known occupation - or one of the firsts - and end with the last/latest. But there is always only three. A typical line could thus show: model/actor/director. Or lawyer/politician/P (P standing for president).
Some people, especially those born a couple of hundred years ago, typically had several occupations. But there too we mention only the three occupations the person is most known for, and chronologically whenever possible.
If there is a position of higher power, we give that too, but in a shortened version. Or a prize acclaimed. You can find the different abbreviations here.
There are also several people in the year files that have been added here from somewhere else than Wikipedia, such as ancient family members. It is often hard, or downright impossible sometimes, to find any reliable information concerning their professional life or what they did for living. But for the sake of interest, we can definitely try to be as accurate as we can. A lot of people do have precise information about their relatives, while some have hardly any, but any information is better than none at all. So if you do wish to add people from your family tree here, feel free to do so. Read more about it here.
Are you familiar with Tinker Tailor? A children’s rhyme where the child points to each item in turn (or alternately) all the while saying the rhyme “tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief”, moving to the next item after naming each profession. The item pointed at on the word ‘thief’ is the one chosen.
In Finnish we have a similar rhyme with professions and fates of life: “Pappi, lukkari, talonpoika, kuppari, rikas, rakas, köyhä, varas, nyt mä lähden tästä talosta pois” - pois (out/away) being the point of exit. To round of, here’s a link to a very interesting video based on that rhyme that may leave you, well, wondering at the very least:
