Day 2

[jenett]

(because I'm interested in what I'm doing. You might or might not be.)



- Listened to my voicemail (my phone had dead battery last night), and found a cheerful burbly message from Elise about her excellent doctor's appt. yesterday, and also wishing me well on the first day back. (There are many reasons I am deeply fond of her. This is merely an example)

- Came in. No amiable student today, as she has to do placement test instead.

- Minion is cheerfully shelf-moving, though. She is delighted by my acquisition of pliers to bend shelf brackets with.

- Have been working on digging through my email mostly, and finding paperwork for the Title stuff that's ongoing. I plan to do a lot more on Thurs/Fri, when the minion is having new staff orientation.

- Wrote difficult email to my assistant head of school over dropping the ball on something this summer, in which I simultaneously point out that I was in 10 days outside my contracted time and found it very frustrating to be getting stuff piecemeal, and asking for assistance in coming up with a plan that doesn't leave me wanting to dismantle NCLB funding singlehanded. (Because, seriously, I think it'd be less work.)

- Had a lovely talk with one of our history teachers, including a digression into the difference between a rostrum, a podium, and a lectern. (Oxford English Dictionary online subscription to the rescue.)

- In a bit, I go and take Title paperwork in, grab lunch, and then come back and spend the afternoon moving books, I hope. (My shoulders, oh, dear, are they stiff.)

Comments

[maribou]

I am interested!

[cjsherwood.livejournal.com]

Had a lovely talk with one of our history teachers, including a digression into the difference between a rostrum, a podium, and a lectern. (Oxford English Dictionary online subscription to the rescue.)

What? You drop a tantalizing etymological tease into the discussion and don't elucidate for those of us poor unlucky souls without said online subscription? Harrumph!

[jenett]

Consider it my way of provoking comments :)

Short version:

- rostrum and podium are both words for the same thing, basically: the platform upon which the speaker stands. The term podium derives from the structure in an amphitheatre on which the emperor or other high-status folks would sit, the rostrum is originally the name for the platform upon which speakers in the Roman forum would stand.

- lectern, on the other hand, is the term for the thing you actually read off, and has a medieval origin, mostly (because the first uses of the term are in medieval church settings.

Therefore, which is what brought the question up, the thing that's sitting out in the hallway outside the library is a lectern, not anything else. (No platform.)

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the use of "rostrum" as a term for the speaker's platform in the Forum of Rome had something to do with the Romans' habit of decorating the platform with the bows/rams of enemy ships captured in sea battles. "Rostrum" literally means "beak" (as in the anatomical appendage on birds,) and the Romans evidently saw ships as having a beak as opposed to a bow or a prow or a stem.

Foos for thought, anyway.

[jenett]

Yes, all that is in there, but it doesn't directly apply to the definitional differences, so I did not retype.

[selkie-b.livejournal.com]

Glad you have such a helpful minion

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Lurves me some OED, I do. Getting a copy of the original Compact Edition was worth all of the hassle of being a Book-of-the-Month Club member for a couple of years.