Of course no one asked me but if they had I would have told them that we actually used the word “magister” for a while, at least in writing. I suspect it wasn’t used in speech because it’s frankly kind of clunky and it died out pretty quickly even in writing. I usually see it on various administrative papers that masters had to fill out, most often in its pompous adjectival form, which makes me laugh every time. Here’s an example that I just happened have ready to hand on my laptop:
If we had to change I would have preferred “Maestro,” which is, I believe, substantially funnier.
Bonus: Thanks to Campus Photographer Jeff Fitlow for another classic Rice image.
Yes, the adjectival form of “master” is “magisterial,” isn’t it?
I am so glad that that form was no longer required when Helen and I became Masters of Jone College. In fact, by then, Rice was pretty cool about it all. Rice paid moving expenses for the new Masters. They also, by our time, provided a certain amount of money for entertainment so that the Masters did not have to mess with that paperwork. Since I had a ready and enthusiastic bunch of Rice Players who would be pleased to help us move I asked the Business office if they would let me take care of the moving expense and add it to our entertainment budget. Rice agreed.
Moving day was on our daughter’s ninth birthday. We planned a party. Our Rice Players came to our house the night before and baked cookies and cupcakes by the dozens. We had invited the children of all of our friends to come to the party at Jones House–which was empty. There must have been forty kids and their parents. We had all the cookies and cupcakes, party punch for the kids–and a different punch bowl for the parents. Our Rice Players ran party games in the garden and atrium with the children–egg in spoon races, Red Rover, lots of singing of funny songs, etc. At a certain point our wonderful student MC told all the children to find their parents and tell them it was time to go home. After everyone left the students drove back to our house and loaded all of our possessions into a previously rented rental truck and moved us into Jones House. As a result we had a major increase in our entertainment budget.
In fact, I believe Melissa might very well have photos of that party.
I was wondering about that. Those might well be the most interesting images in that collection.
I believe the more correct adjective here would have been “magistral”, “pertaining to Magisters.” Magisterial usually means “with authority” or “pertaining to magistrates”.