Speaking of Speaking

Today begins the AFP International Conference in Baltimore, where the organization will celebrate its 50th Anniversary. Some presenters will use a lectern, some a podium. Some will be on a dais.

I have heard all three terms used for the same thing, so let’s differentiate.

A lectern is traditionally the desk in church from which the Scriptures are read. The word lectern comes from lectus, which is the past participle of legere, which means to read. It has travelled to us in its current form as adjustments were made in Middle Latin, then Old French, then Old English, when it was spelled lettorn in the early 14th century. In the mid-15th century it was altered after the Latin forms (one source said “re-Latinized”) to our current spelling. In many churches the lectern is separate from the pulpit. It has also come to mean the stand for holding the notes, etc. of a lecturer, and the illustration in my dictionary shows a lectern as something behind which a standing person would speak.

The word pulpit actually refers to the platform used to elevate the clergyman rather than the desk itself. A lectern could, according to my dictionary, be on a pulpit. In Low Latin (or Latin, my sources disagree again) the word pulpitum gives this word to English in the early 14th century. Other than that there is etymological disagreement in other ways. Pulpitum means stage or scaffold, although that is also disputed. It wasn’t long, however, before pulpit also came to refer to preachers and ministers. That was in place by the 1560s.

A podium (from the Greek podion, which is a diminutive form of the Greek word for foot) was by 1743 the raised platform around the ancient arena or the wall that separated the seats from the arena. It was also used for the projecting base of a pedestal. It wasn’t until 1947 that the raised platform at the front of a hall or stage (on which a lectern would sit) came to be called a podium. The podium is the platform, not the desk holding notes. It has also come to mean the platform on which an orchestra conductor stands.

A dais can be synonymous with a podium, but it has a better and more common use. Coming from the Greek word diskos that was transliterated into the Latin word discus (yes, that discus) to describe a plate, in Old French it came to mean the table or platform on which plates were placed. It was spelled dais in Old French, but later in Anglo-French its spelling was deis. The interesting thing about this word is that its used died out in England in about 1600, but survived in Scotland. In the 19th century it was “revived by antiquarians” and has been used since. I believe its best use is to describe the table(s) set on a podium in proximity to the lectern. Whether there are any plates involved or not.