I can't really choose any of them. Having little or no ambition myself I nevertheless recognise it in others. I'd say "all of the above", if I had to say anything, as I think ambition is driven by all sorts of different things and is sometimes even its own motive.

True story.
When I used to work in the police computer department my grade was Senior Computer Officer. Many times there were posts available at the grade above, Project Manager. I never applied for any of them being perfectly content to do the job I had and not wanting to do a completely different job even for more money. Towards the end of my eight years there the head of our department called me into his office and asked me why I never applied for promotion. I told him and he berated me for my lack of ambition and more or less instructed me to apply for the next promotion that came up on the grounds that everyone was expected to show ambition and that a lack of it reflected badly on the organisation.
It was just one of the factors that led to my decision to leave them.

Read "The Peter Principle" for an amusing insight into one man's views about promotion and ambition.

My first thought upon seeing the word was Antony's funeral oration in Julius Caesar.

Asa, my classic education fails me...could you please remind me of that oration?

Hmmm, those results are hard to analyze because I don't know which selections were made by men and which by women. However, the article said that men would tend to choose 1 or 3, while women would tend to choose 2 or 4.

Well, 8 votes doesn't make for a very good sample, either way.

I know what you mean, Bob, about all of the above.

In my own profession, there is a sad irony that to get ahead you must stop (in many cases) doing what you're best at and switch to other things. Children's Librarians are often viewed as "entry level" positions. Really great CLs are then encouraged to move into management, often meaning that they will stop or reduce their work with children! I am fortunate in that I found (finally) a management position where I can still do work with kids.

Yes, 8 votes does not a valid study make!

However, this was just a poll. Obviously, I should have asked it differently so that I'd know if the women chose selections 2(2) and 4(1), and the men chose 1(1) and 3(4). It wouldn't say much, but it might say a little. I don't even recall which I chose at this point, which only goes to show how unreliable it is!

CW, for the record, I have always thought the children's librarians to be the most creative and dedicated of all the librarians. I had thought it to be one of the highest library positions, not an "entry level" position.

I feel that kiddie librarians and kindergarten/first grade teachers ar THE MOST important, since they either make readers/learners or destroy them.

I wholeheartedly agree, Asa. Shu and I always have said that it is pre-school and elementary school where the love of learning really develops. By high school, and certainly college, those attitudes have already been formed.

So there we have one of the great ironies of life. The most important positions in education (for I totally agree) are usually the least paid (and, in the case of preschool teachers, some of the least educated) of all positions. But what can we DO about it? (other than complain to one another)

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:
So there we have one of the great ironies of life. The most important positions in education (for I totally agree) are usually the least paid (and, in the case of preschool teachers, some of the least educated) of all positions. But what can we DO about it? (other than complain to one another)

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As Antony said in "Julius Caesar, " "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." Unions would help, with not merely educational standards, but talent standards too. Well-educated "cold fish" do not make good pedagogues.

Speaking of "sterner stuff," have any of you seen Jerry Sterner's play, "Other People's Money?" The movie doesn't count, since it totally misses the point of the play.

So there we have one of the great ironies of life. The most important positions in education are usually the least paid

Oh, but CW, that's not just the case in education. Look at nurses, for example (and there are many, many other jobs that I could name). Daily, nurses make life and death decisions on patients, and at least in our area, they make less than kindergarten teachers. Even looking at university professors, most of them would make more money in business or industry. I think many of you would be very surprised as to what university professors make. Some of the junior faculty members who taught nursing with me, all with PhDs and a remarkable list of publications and research, made less money than the elementary teachers in our local school district.

It's the salaries of entertainers and sports stars that dust my doilies!

Remember, we live in a "demand-driven" society and that system seems likely very soon to replace the few command-driven societies (the remaining communist outposts) before much longer.

In a demand-driven society people sell their services and the amount the get for them (what they earn, in other words) is dependent on what their customers are prepared to pay. So pop stars and sports personalities earn obscene amounts of money just so long as their customers (ultimately their fans) will pay for them. But never forget, most such personalities' careers are mericifully brief and then their earnings disappear.

Talent is rewarded only according to its market value in a demand society - and the market value of medical staff is relatively low since most of us don't want their services - we just have to have them when we fall ill. Most medical care is what is termed a "distress purchase" - one you buy only when you have to. It is interesting to note that those practising medicine in the elective areas (such as cosmetic surgery), where people have procedures through choice, usually earn much more money than those practising in non-choice areas such as geriatrics.

Command economies, where the government decides who get paid what, in spite of their apparent attraction have not been successful. Cuba, one of the last countries with a command economy (and where, incidentally, medical professionals are very highly regarded and where the ratio of doctors to patients is about double that of the USA) has, in the past ten years, allowed a market economy to develop alongside the command economy - and it has been very successful.

and the market value of medical staff is relatively low since most of us don't want their services - we just have to have them when we fall ill.

Too bad. Perhaps that's why 96,000 people in the U.S. die annually of medical errors...more than die from AIDS or breast cancer.

Cuba, one of the last countries with a command economy (and where, incidentally, medical professionals are very highly regarded and where the ratio of doctors to patients is about double that of the USA)

BTW, I don't think we need a higher ratio of doctors to patients. I think more effective and better-educated nurses, who work in a collaborative way with physicians, is the answer. However, I suspect the AMA would disagree with me!

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I suspect the AMA would disagree with me!

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Is that the Academy of Model Aeronautics or the American Motorcyclist Association?

Quote "...I think more effective and better-educated nurses, who work in a collaborative way with physicians, is the answer...."

I would agree with that as well. Again Cuba is ahead of most of the rest of the world with a seven-year training programme for doctors and nurses - two years longer than the UK (and I suspect the USA).

Cuba has, for some years, offered to take US medical trainees and allow them to study at its large medical university in Havana but I don't know whether that has actually ever happened. There was a considerable amount of argument against it from the anti-Castro lobby and that, added to the US Government's travel restrictions, may have scuppered the idea.

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may have scuppered the idea.

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There's a Britishism! I've not heard scupper used to mean drown or destroy in the USA. Its only meaning here, as far as I know, is "drain."

Richard does like to bring up Cuba to us Americans, doesn't he?

I've not heard scupper used to mean drown or destroy in the USA

Well, Asa, you're better than I...I hadn't heard the word at all!

Scupper means "to deliberately sink a vessel".

And I do, I agree, mention Cuba on occasions to my American friends since I know, from my own observations, that there is much negative propaganda about that lovely island - which, so sadly, those of you who live in the USA are not allowed to visit.

Scupper means "to deliberately sink a vessel".

Aren't you thinking of to scuttle? To scupper means to destroy something, not necessarily a ship. There is a noun scupper which refers to an opening in the side of a ship to allow water out of the ship. A scuttle, on the other hand, is a hatch or a hole cut into the hull of a ship to sink it. Some captains scuttle their own ships rather than let them fall into enemy hands.

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Originally posted by jheem:
_Scupper means "to deliberately sink a vessel"._

Aren't you thinking of _to scuttle_?

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According to one dictionary of mine, it's a British military expression, and he's used it in that way, so he did mean "scupper," and rightly so. As I said above, a very distinct Britishism in this case!

According to one dictionary of mine, it's a British military expression, and he's used it in that way, so he did mean "scupper," and rightly so. As I said above, a very distinct Britishism in this case!

I beg your pardon. I was misled by the OED. The first edition does not give any such definition of scupper. Destroy something, yes, deliberately sink a ship, no.

My COED says:

Brit. Slang. 1. Sink a ship (or its crew) 2. Defeat or ruin (a plan etc) 3. Kill. 19th C origin unknown.

Eric Partridge has this for scupper:

"Scupper. To take by surprise and then massacre: military : 1885 (The Suakin Expedition). W.—2. Hence to kill: late C. 19–20. B & F. fr. cooper (q.v.) to ruin."

And, "Scuppered. Killed, dead in battle: naval, hence military: late C. 19—20. Ex preceding.—2. Sunk: naval: C. 20. Bowen.—3. Scattered, demoralized: naval and miltary: C. 20. F. & Gibbons."

Since the meaning of 'sunk' is secondary and confined to the 20th century, that's probably why my edition of the OED did not have. Learn a new word every day. Bowen is F. Bowen's Sea Slang 1929.

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Bowen is F. Bowen's _Sea Slang_ 1929.

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And "sea slang" sounds like a line from a tongue twister - ir is that a twongue tister?

Tips of the slongue, or lapsus linguæ.

Mongrel doggerel ...

"It's no secret,"
Sea slanger's rant
It makes nautical nerds
Adamant

It's all hypothetical,
Analphabetical
Everyone knows sailors cant.

More mongrel doggerel.
(should this be in a different thread?)

(or nowhere ???)


I think that I now get the drift
In what linguists see as their gift:
In language improvement
Expect a vowel movement
Along with each consonant shift

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More mongrel doggerel.
(should this be in a different thread?)
(or nowhere ???)

Jerry, definitely somewhere...I love it!

It might be a new thread, but it's great, especially the last one. I've been missing your poetic talent lately!

JT - humorous and well done! Great use of "vowel movement" . . . but isn't a consonant shift what causes tsunamis?