On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Anthony Farr <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Fa(s)cinating name - Radcliffe Camera, I wonder why. >> > > "Camera" in Italian translates to "chamber" or "room" in English. I believe > but can't confirm that "camera" is also Latin for "room". The legal term > "in camera" means "in a sealed room" or "in private". Old English > universities are very fond of Latin. > > Regards, Anthony >
Camera is indeed Latin for room and the use by old universities is a relic of when Latin was the common language of scholars, which it was up until 200 or so years ago. In fact the term came to be applied to cameras via the use of the Camera Obscura for drawing. A Camera Obscura is a dark room, typically a small hut and usually portable for some definition of portable, with a pinhole in one wall. The projected image on the opposite wall was then traced or painted). -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
