Oblate

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy
The destinctions between prolate spheroid, true sphere, and thence
oblate spheroid have been a source of jocularity in my faimily, and
even among my friends, since before I took geometry in high school. I
think back to the "How to Draw" books (they seemed to be everywhere
when I was a kid) and the way the authors would give handy schematic
rules for drawing people and animals based on combinations of these
shapes. I learned to see the human form in these terms even before I
began undressing Ms. K. with my eyes.

A pregnant woman presents a prolate form, whether that form is oriented
vertically, at an angle to the horizontal, or pointing out forward like
the business end of some enormous meaty missile. 

A *fat* person will tend to the oblate, like the Michelin Man.

Dixon is getting a wee bit, well, *Fat*. Mason characterizes Dizons
form accurately. He is an astronomer after all!

Incidentally: in England prior to the 18th century there was no such
beast as a professional architect -- architects were called Surveyors.
The modern english "quantity surveyor" is his descendant. The King (any
king) had what was known as an "Office of the King's Works" responsible
for everything from fortifications and dredging of harbors to designing
finials for fenceposts at Whitehall Palace. Vast expenditures were
controlled by the "King's Surveyor" at the head of this office.
Surveyor under Charles the First was Inigo Jones, artiste and
theatrical designer. Surveyor under Charles the Second and then William
and Mary was Christopher Wren, a mathematician who could hold his own
in converse with Isaac Newton. Wren was a polymath who might just as
well have been given the post of Royal Astonomer as King's Surveyor.
Wren's dome at St. Pauls is Prolate. His dome at St. Stephen Walbrook
is just slightly Oblate (or looks so).

Oblate and Prolate are precise terms describing geometrical forms. That
Mason, or Dixon for that matter, would use them in conversation with
one another rings true, and the Oblate Sisters needn't be dragged into
it...

Mark

Terrance wrote:
> 
> Mason's reply "I only hope you're not suggesting anyone in our 
immediate
> Company,--....
> 
> and this is when he notices that Dixon has developed a paunch or a 
globe
> or whatever.

And do note, while my fancy is working here, that parenthetical

"(the Figure of it indeed changing, one day to the next, the rest of us
watching in some alarm its Transition from a Spheroid vertically
disposed, to one more wide than high)"

Now I'm not a midwife (gen. obstetrics, lit. "one who stands opposite
the woman giving birth") or a doctor or an astronomer, but Mason is and
he says, 

"I'm an astonomer,--trust me, 'tis gone well to oblate." 

I taught pregnant teens for a while in NYC. These young ladies were
often rather uncomfortable, their bladders being crushed, back spasms,
they would have plenty of excuses to get out of class, but unless I saw
that belly moving from up on high to a lower position, I was to keep
them in class. 

And Judy, I think down in Baltimore there are still the Oblate Sisters,
Catholic Nuns. 
What have they to do with Quakers and African-Americans? 
That's worth looking into.

--- David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Main Entry: 1ob.late
> Pronunciation: ä-'blAt, 'ä-"
> Function: adjective
> Etymology: probably from New Latin oblatus, from ob- + -latus (as in 
> prolatus prolate)
> Date: 1705
> : flattened or depressed at the poles
> - ob.late.ness noun
> 
> Main Entry: 2ob.late
> Pronunciation: 'ä-"blAt
> Function: noun
> Etymology: Medieval Latin oblatus, literally, one offered up, from
> Latin, 
> past participle of offerre -- more at OFFER
> Date: 1864
> 1 : a layman living in a monastery under a modified rule and without
> vows
> 2 : a member of one of several Roman Catholic communities of men or
> women
> 
> Main Entry: ob.la.tion
> Pronunciation: &-'blA-sh&n, O-
> Function: noun
> Etymology: Middle English oblacioun, from Middle French oblation,
> from Late 
> Latin oblation-, oblatio, from Latin offerre
> Date: 15th century
> 1 : the act of making a religious offering; specifically capitalized
> : the 
> act of offering the eucharistic elements to God
> 2 : something offered in worship or devotion : a holy gift offered
> usually 
> at an altar or shrine
> 
> 
> 
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