Q: "gallows" also including a platform?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/7/2013 10:20 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>In fact, the GALLOWS ('platform') was
>traditionally regarded as a sort of stage,
>whereon the condemned individual might orate or
>at least perform the art of dying well.

For this employment of the "platform", see
"scaffold", †3: "A raised platform, seat, or
stand, used for the purpose of exhibiting persons
or actions to the public view, making proclamations, or the like."

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org