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Steven Sweeney · 10-18-2002, 07:56 PM

Media-tion

Talk about divided loyalties. It's been over 30 years since Latin, but I can still rattle off those endings for all the noun declensions, male, feminine, and neuter, which is both a blessing and a curse. What an orderly, logical, beautiful language, and no wonder it underlies what we know as the Romance languages (one of which we're communicating in right now). [I know -- misplaced preposition. That's a different thread, and also the subject of some funny jokes.]

But times change and language evolves. When I hear that there (are?) media in my studio, I half expect to be greeted by Ted Koppel investigating, perhaps, the great painting-from-projections scandal.

A further complication is our use of "medium" in at least two senses in the studio. "Medium" indicates the nature of our pigmented material, reflecting the way those pigments are bound. So we ask artists what medium they work in, and they say oils, or watercolors, or pastels. The usage I've most often seen in this sense is to refer to those various materials as painting "media". (In the same vein, we speak of "mixed media".)

"Medium" also refers to the materials we add to those painting media to disperse them, or dry them, or make them flow more easily. Arguably inconsistent is again the usage I find more prevalent, to refer to the plural of those materials as "mediums". At the very least, this keeps Mr. Koppel's nose out of my private methodologies. And if I refer to the properties "of" (genitive case) those materials, I don't have to wretch over whether "mediorum" is indicated.

I don't have any trouble saying "radii" or even "octopi", but that's just because I can never sort out whether to double the final "s" before adding the suffix. But I wouldn't want to see a sportswriter commenting on various cities' debates on building new stadia (or worse, stadii) for their teams. Whether that's reasonable I leave to the foci groups.

As for those palm-reading mediums, no way, under any declension. I don't harbor deep dark personal secrets (such as affection for Latin) for nothing.

10-18-2002, 07:56 PM	#36
Steven Sweeney Juried Member PT 5+ years Joined: Nov 2001 Location: Stillwater, MN Posts: 1,801	Media-tion Talk about divided loyalties. It's been over 30 years since Latin, but I can still rattle off those endings for all the noun declensions, male, feminine, and neuter, which is both a blessing and a curse. What an orderly, logical, beautiful language, and no wonder it underlies what we know as the Romance languages (one of which we're communicating in right now). [I know -- misplaced preposition. That's a different thread, and also the subject of some funny jokes.] But times change and language evolves. When I hear that there (are?) media in my studio, I half expect to be greeted by Ted Koppel investigating, perhaps, the great painting-from-projections scandal. A further complication is our use of "medium" in at least two senses in the studio. "Medium" indicates the nature of our pigmented material, reflecting the way those pigments are bound. So we ask artists what medium they work in, and they say oils, or watercolors, or pastels. The usage I've most often seen in this sense is to refer to those various materials as painting "media". (In the same vein, we speak of "mixed media".) "Medium" also refers to the materials we add to those painting media to disperse them, or dry them, or make them flow more easily. Arguably inconsistent is again the usage I find more prevalent, to refer to the plural of those materials as "mediums". At the very least, this keeps Mr. Koppel's nose out of my private methodologies. And if I refer to the properties "of" (genitive case) those materials, I don't have to wretch over whether "mediorum" is indicated. I don't have any trouble saying "radii" or even "octopi", but that's just because I can never sort out whether to double the final "s" before adding the suffix. But I wouldn't want to see a sportswriter commenting on various cities' debates on building new stadia (or worse, stadii) for their teams. Whether that's reasonable I leave to the foci groups. As for those palm-reading mediums, no way, under any declension. I don't harbor deep dark personal secrets (such as affection for Latin) for nothing. __________________ Steven Sweeney [email protected] "You must be present to win."