On 13 Jun 2008 20:16:50 GMT, rf10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
wrote:

> Gumrat  writes:
>>Jim Easterbrook wrote:
>>> Is it because the payee is the CC company's customer and you're only the 
>>> client?
>>
>>Now *there's* semantics (for me, anyhow) Jim - how do you distinguish 
>>the two and why is the client inferior to the customer?
>
>because the customer comes at the bottom of all piles.
>
>once upon a time, when the world was young, i was working on a
>computer graphics standard which had a complicated relation between
>the things at the two ends of the wire.  i had proposed (and most
>people agreed) that we think of the two ends of the wire being client
>and server, the relationship changing ends as appropriate.
>
>there was a strong objection from the german delegation which was
>eventually explained as: "clients are what lawyers have, and in that
>situation they're inferior.  so the word doesn't fit in our world
>where the two are equals..."
>
>i have long wondered whether this is a common view of german lawyers
>-- that they're god-like creatures, removed from the realms of us
>ordinary mortals, unlike our british lawyers, who're probably clever
>but *not as clever as us*...

It sounds more like the Ancient Roman system, when a client was
definitely inferior to the patron, but the patron had obligations
which IIRC included appearing for the client in court. On the box, at
least, German lawyers have MandantInnen [1], which would appear to
mean someone who has entrusted you with a task.

[1] or is this useful contraction known only South of the Border?

-- 
Jo

Jo Lonergan  writes:
>On 13 Jun 2008 20:16:50 GMT, rf10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
>wrote:
>>once upon a time, when the world was young, i was working on a
>>computer graphics standard which had a complicated relation between
>>the things at the two ends of the wire.  i had proposed (and most
>>people agreed) that we think of the two ends of the wire being client
>>and server, the relationship changing ends as appropriate.
>>
>>there was a strong objection from the german delegation which was
>>eventually explained as: "clients are what lawyers have, and in that
>>situation they're inferior.  so the word doesn't fit in our world
>>where the two are equals..."
>>
>>i have long wondered whether this is a common view of german lawyers
>>-- that they're god-like creatures, removed from the realms of us
>>ordinary mortals, unlike our british lawyers, who're probably clever
>>but *not as clever as us*...
>
>It sounds more like the Ancient Roman system, when a client was
>definitely inferior to the patron, but the patron had obligations
>which IIRC included appearing for the client in court.  [...]

look, i know i appear immensely old, but my colleagues in computer
graphics standardisation weren't ancient romans.

honestly.
-- 
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge