On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> On 20000915T060004-0700, Rick Younie wrote:
> > Sponsee? Tony made that one up didn't he? I can see the
> > confusion in a couple years when the number of Debian maintainers
> > hits a few million. "What's that language you're speaking?
> > Debian you say?" :-)
>
> Tony who?
>
> You ever heard of deriving words? The thing that allows you to make
> up a word using established derivation mechanisms when no existing word
> is suitable?
I appear to be the Tony in question. I'm very likely also responsible for
coining the word "sponsee" (although I can't really take credit - my
company uses "mentee" as the counterpart to "mentor" - since no one seems
to be able to spell "protege" correctly on a consistent basis.)
I have to confess that I need to go back and try to follow this thread
from the start (/me runs off to find a threaded mail reader), but if the
issue is the use of Debianspeak, then what do folks think of the word
protege?
$ dict protege
2 definitions found
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Prot'eg'e \Pro`t['e]`g['e]"\, n. m. Prot'eg'ee
\Pro`t['e]`g['e]e"\, n. f.[F., p. p. of prot['e]ger. See
{Protect}.]
One under the care and protection of another.
From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:
protege
n : a person who receives support and protection from an
influential patron who furthers the protege's career
I guess that we're talking about a career in Debian, although I'm not sure
how much "support and protection" I provide to my
victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsponsees. (On the other hand, maybe we really *need*
a new word for "the person whom a sponsor sponsors" since I'm not sure
that such a relationship existed up until now.)
Cheers,
tony
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Time after time we lose sight of the way.
http://www.debian.org | Our causes can't see their effects.
| (Neil Peart)
