C is for CHAIR

I've borrowed my title from this morning's excerpt from B  is for Bauhaus (this week's Book of the Week. I have nothing to say about that, apart from noting my surprise at the absence of a reference to Christine Keeler's notable contribution to the fame of a particularly trendy (at the time) chair. But it made me reflect that C is also for Cathedral.

Some time ago, a member of the Using English forums asked about the use of chair:

Could you please explain to me the use of the word "chair" in the context of "university".
I looked through the dictionaries and realised that it's a synomym of "professorship" (or of a positoin at university). I've always thought "chair" means a group of tutors/teachers or a department at the university.

I see in the Internet the following use:

"The Wirth Chair is committed to helping governments, businesses, non-profit groups and community organizations form sustainable development partnerships that carefully balance economic, environmental and expanded social welfare objectives and strategies."

So I'm confused here...
Could the word "chair" also mean a department of the university as I have thought?

To the possible annoyance of another moderator, who favours minimalist answers especially in the Ask a Teacher forum, I left it to others to actually answer the question and indulged myself thus:

Etymologically, the 'chair' was a real chair; the professor sat on it (the Sp catedrático reflects this); similarly, the bishop in a cathedral had such a chair*. It was a big and ornate chair - the Spanish cadera took a different path (one that involved more phonological erosion [I'm tempted to make a joke about hip-replacement, {cadera=hip} but I might be one of the few people to smile rather than look askance ]).

...

PS * I believe the Pope sits in this sort of chair to make pronouncements ex cathedra [='from the chair']. That's Latin, but it's understood and used by the more lettered among us.

I needn't have looked as far afield as a cathedral for this sort of 'hip' chair (which is a bit of a stretch, I know, but it's true, honest).  Another member of the forum, who had the good fortune to be born into a bilingual country (how I wish...), commented

However, the Catalan cadira (chair) follows suit with you explanation far better than the Spanish one.

The Spanish cadera isn't alone in that 'phonological erosion' I referred to. The first step on the road to cadera, starting from cathedra (stressed on the FIRST syllable

<rant flame="intensityOfAMillionSuns">
Classic FM, please note, or stop playing that Ex Cathedra piece: I like the music, but not at the expense of hearing the word mis-stressed. And while we're on the subject, the same goes for 'CarMEENa' [sick] Burana ]
</rant>

 ) is to change the stress; that paves the way for a mixture of lenition and metathesis (discussed elsewhere in this blog – you can find it by exercising the new doofer I've added, in the leftright-hand margin. Ignore autobigraphy [sic], which'll be fixed when I get a Round Tuit. Click on metathesis).

Lord is that the time? Weathershield Brilliant White Gloss  here I come.

b


Update 2014.05.05.20:35 – Fix typo in last para.

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 Mammon When Vowels Get Together V5.2: Collection of Kindle word-lists grouping different pronunciations of vowel-pairs. Now complete (that is, it covers all vowel pairs –  but there's still stuff to be done with it; an index, perhaps...?) 

And here it is: Digraphs and Diphthongs . The (partial) index has an entry for each vowel pair that can represent each monophthong phoneme. For example AE, EA and EE are by far the most common, but there are eight other possibilities. The index uses colour to give an idea of how common a spelling is, ranging from bright red to represent the most common to pale olive green to represent the least common.

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