Fun_People Archive
14 Apr
The Five "C"s: A Layperson's Guide

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 97 16:20:27 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Five "C"s: A Layperson's Guide

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Eric Allman <eric@sendmail.org>
Forwarded-by: Rhiannon Collinson <rhian@hillside.co.uk>

According to Malcolm Bradbury in "Unsent Letters":

.... briefly, a conference is what you hold when you want to give a
particular group prestige; a congress is what you have if you wish to make
the prestige international; a convention is what you have if you want to
have a good time as well; a course is what you have if you want the good
time to go on for several weeks; and a colloquium is if you want to have a
good time for several weeks with a very small and select number of people.

.... At conferences the participants confer; at a congress they dissent; at
a convention they listen; on a course they fall asleep; at a colloquium they
do the same but often in the same bed.

To put it another way: a conference is an elite meeting on equal terms; a
congress is a group of elites meeting on opposite terms; a convention is a
mob meeting on equal terms; a course is an elite instructing a mob; and a
colloquium is a group capable of considering all these phenomena.

© 1997 Peter Langston