[WikiEN-l] vocabulary

[Thomas Dalton]

2008/9/4 Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com>:
> 2008/9/4 Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
>
>
>> The definition of a "mécène" is not so different from the definition of
>> a sponsor, though the French article hints that the "mecène" does that
>> for philanthropic reasons, whilst the sponsor does that for commercial
>> reasons.
>
> The traditional distinction would be "patron" - you would talk about
> so-and-so being the patron of an artist, of Michaelangelo working
> under the patronage of the Pope. The patron would gain advantages,
> usually prestige, and the artist would gain a living and perhaps
> respectability.

"Patron" is the first word I though of too, although it's not perfect.
A patron supplies you with a living, you would only have one patron
and they supply everything for you (at least, in my understanding of
the word). That's not really what Florence is looking for.

> Generally speaking, I'd say "donor" implies it's a simple gift, whilst
> "sponsor" suggests they explicitly intend to capitalise on it.

Yeah, "donor" works for me. "Benefactor" is another option.

Florence, you could try the Reference Desk (humanities, probably), the
people there are probably better at this kind of thing than this
mailing list.