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Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by ddingus on Monday September 10, 2018 @02:29PM (#17953899)
Word of the day: docent.

I rarely see this in common expression. Nice choice.

Old tech has great appeal. Scale is our size, and features forces, artifacts we can see, hear and feel easily. I can imagine that glow. Damn cool.

Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by kazinator on Monday September 10, 2018 @05:16PM (#17955285)
docent is common in Czech and Slovak.

There is also a particle "do" which means "into" and also "up/until". In Czech, the opposite of this sense is "přes", meaning "over/beyond".

So this is the basis of an old joke that "docent" means someone weighing up to 100 kg; above that they become a "přescent":

https://cestina20.cz/slovnik/prescent/

:)

Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by ddingus on Monday September 10, 2018 @05:44PM (#17955481)
Thank you. That was fun to learn.
Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by tingletech on Monday September 10, 2018 @03:20PM (#17954325)
what other word is used for the volunteers who interact with patrons at a museum?
Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by testvox on Monday September 10, 2018 @03:30PM (#17954416)
> The title "docent" is not widely used outside the United States, with the terms "guide", "facilitator", or "educator" preferred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_docent

Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by sannee on Monday September 10, 2018 @04:11PM (#17954795)
Interestingly, the same word is used at some european universities to mean roughly "associate professor".
Re:Glowing mercury thyratrons: inside a 1940s Teletype switc... by ddingus on Monday September 10, 2018 @03:55PM (#17954645)
Nailed it.

It is not all that widely used in the US either, in my experience anyway.