What do you call the thing that "holds" the iron man armors? I say "hold", because it doesn't seem to be a container, but more like a sort of stand. Not sure if there's a name for it, because it's not a stand.
Phrase Request – What Holds Iron Man’s Suits Called?
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You're talking about an event manager or event planner.
From Wikipedia's article on event management (redirected from event planner):
The process of planning and coordinating the event is usually referred to as event planning and which can include budgeting, scheduling, site selection, acquiring necessary permits, coordinating transportation and parking, arranging for speakers or entertainers, arranging decor, event security, catering, coordinating with third party vendors, and emergency plans. Each event is different in its nature so process of planning & execution of each event differs on basis of type of event.
The event manager is the person who plans and executes the event, taking responsibility for the creative, technical, and logistical elements. This includes overall event design, brand building, marketing and communication strategy, audio-visual production, script writing, logistics, budgeting, negotiation, and client service.
From "Becoming an Event Planner" at The Balance Small Business:
The event planner creates programs that address the purpose, message or impression that their organization or client is trying to communicate. Event planners work long and non-traditional hours to plan and execute all details related to a variety of meeting formats including seminars, conferences, trade shows, executive retreats, incentive programs, golf events, conventions, and other programs.
Summary
Token opposition is the closest English idiom for one or more candidates who are on the ballot for mere superficial appearance. However, native speakers would be able to pick up the intended meaning behind calling someone a technical candidate.
Other related terms with varying shades of meaning are listed below in decreasing order of specificity or relevance to the scenario from your question. Read beyond the divider for further explanation of each.
- Sham Candidate
- Nominal Candidate
- Sacrificial Lamb
- Phantom Candidate
- Paper Candidate
- Fringe Candidate
- Perennial Candidate (or Perennial Opponent)
- Spoiler or Protest Candidate
- Window dressing
Token Opposition
The adjective form of token means
Done for the sake of appearances or as a symbolic gesture.
‘cases like these often bring just token fines from magistrates’
so token opposition is present only to make the process look legitimate.
Opposition is a mass noun or uncountable noun, possibly a tricky case for students of English.
In English, mass nouns are characterized by the fact that they cannot be directly modified by a numeral without specifying a unit of measurement, and that they cannot combine with an indefinite article (a or an).
This means the following are ungrammatical.
Bob was a token opposition.
The token oppositions in the election held up their signs anyway.
The PM faced three token oppositions.
Correct examples include
Bob was the token opposition.
Jim and Betty were Susie’s token opposition.
If you want to use it in count noun form, consider token opponent as in
The frontrunner declined the invitation to debate her token opponent.
Note that the definition of token includes
Denoting a member of a minority group included in an otherwise homogeneous set of people in order to give the appearance of diversity.
‘the patronizing treatment of the token Middle Eastern character’
so referring to someone from a racial minority as a token candidate or even just a token (as opposed to a token opponent) may be perceived as bigoted or xenophobic.
Sham Candidate
The type of election you described in your question is called a sham election, so someone slated for election in the technical sense only could be called a sham candidate or sham opponent. Used as an adjective, sham applies broadly.
Bogus; false.
‘a clergyman who arranged a sham marriage’
A sham election is sometimes referred to as a show election, but the meaning behind show candidate or show opponent may confuse your audience because a show pony looks pretty but is no good for hard work.
Nominal Candidate
The adjective nominal has a similar meaning to technical: in name only. The meaning of nominal candidate will likely be clear to your audience and is less cynical, for when you want to convey a neutral point of view.
Sacrificial Lamb
When the outcome is not rigged but the opponent still has almost zero likelihood of winning, the colorful metaphor sacrificial lamb applies. Given a longstanding and highly popular incumbent, for example, opposing parties may “fill the ballot” by nominating sacrificial lambs whom they do not expect to even be competitive. This way, the party in power must face some opposition rather than running unopposed. Wikipedia notes
In politics, a sacrificial lamb candidate is a candidate chosen to contest an election despite the fact that he or she has little chance of victory. The political party thus appoints the person as a sort of “sacrifice” to the stronger opponent.
In some cases, fielding a sacrificial lamb candidate can serve as an opportunity for the party to be more creative in choosing a candidate than would normally be considered acceptable in a closely contested race. Alan Keyes and Geraldine A. Ferraro are examples in American politics. In 1956, Adlai Stevenson was considered a sacrificial lamb candidate for president against Dwight Eisenhower. In 2004, Howard Mills was considered a sacrificial lamb candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York against Chuck Schumer.
Paper Candidate
A paper candidate is a similar term and also more matter-of-fact and less cynical.
In a representative democracy, the term paper candidate is often given to a candidate who stands for a political party in an electoral division where the party in question enjoys only low levels of support. Although the candidate has little chance of winning, a major party will normally make an effort to ensure it has its name on the ballot paper in every constituency. In two-party systems, a paper candidate may also be known as token opposition.
The idea is that the candidate’s name is on the piece of paper only and is similar in meaning to paper tiger.
Phantom Candidate
A phantom is a ghost, and as an adjective it refers to anything illusory. Phantom candidate is similar in meaning to paper candidate but does not carry any connotation of a rigged election. Instead, a phantom candidate leaves little evidence of his existence. Whereas a paper candidate may have a website, print signs and stickers, distribute literature, and even have a staff, a phantom candidate is barely there at all.
Fringe Candidate
A fringe candidate is one who has little chance of winning because of positions that have little popular support. Fringe candidates may come from major or minor parties. Major-party candidates may contemptuously disparage each other’s “fringe” views in attempts to talk down their support. A major party’s establishment may knowingly put up a fringe candidate as a sacrificial lamb merely to fill the ballot or perhaps hoping for overwhelming defeat: for example, to stamp out a favorite issue of a noisy minority within the party by blaming the issue for lopsided defeat at the polls.
Because fringe is charged, using it may cause your audience to perceive bias against the candidate or at least the views.
Perennial Candidate
A perennial candidate is one who appears on the ballot regularly with no wins and almost no voteshare. The perennial candidate tends to have fringe views or other low likeability. The party tolerates the situation because it at least fills the ballot.
This term has a neutral point of view. If the same candidate shows up over and over in sham elections, referring to the token opposition from outside the electoral jurisdiction in question as a perennial candidate may be taken as evenhanded or as bitingly ironic.
Spoiler or Protest Candidate
Of the two, protest candidate is broader and more objective. A spoiler is someone who enters the race with the intention of causing another candidate to lose or who is judged after the fact to have been a cause of defeat, so the election is definitely competitive. A spoiler is a protest candidate but not necessarily the other way around.
A protest candidate and the major-party or mainstream candidate in jeopardy of being spoiled will perhaps surprisingly have many political positions in common. The protest candidate’s purpose is to give voters a way to show that the mainstream candidate is inauthentic or not bold enough in promoting their shared views. For example, Jill Stein was the Green Party nominee for U.S. President in 2016. The Greens are a far-left party, so Dr. Stein was widely viewed as a protest candidate against Hillary Clinton. In the coming 2020 U.S. election, Donald Trump is likely to face one or more protest candidates who will challenge him for the Republican nomination by asserting that Trump is not sufficiently conservative, either socially or fiscally, and thus not true enough to Republican values. Candidates from the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party are commonly seen as protest candidates against Republicans.
In 1992, billionaire Ross Perot ran for president as an independent, i.e., affiliated with no party. Important issues for him were balancing the federal budget and offshoring of American jobs. He entered the race with the intention of winning. In the end, he captured about 19% of the popular vote and continues to be blamed by Republicans for spoiling the re-election of George H. W. Bush in favor of Bill Clinton.
Window Dressing
Window dressing is a kitschy description that applies broadly to any surface-only appearance.
An adroit but superficial or misleading presentation of something, designed to create a favourable impression.
‘the government's effort has amounted to little more than window dressing’
Paper candidates, sacrificial lambs, and the like are all forms of window dressing. The term does imply at least a level of deception, so it would be fair to call token opposition or sham candidates window dressing.
Best Answer
Officially, the room where Tony Stark keeps all his Iron man suits is called the "Hall of Armor". Historically a room where weapons and armor are stored could be called an "armory".
It's difficult to say what Tony Stark calls the individual structures holding his suits, because their function is not clear. They are not required for support, since the suits can stand on their own, and isn't used for recharging because the suits are self-powered.
That being said: One possibility is to call them a "dock", or a "docking station", much the same as some devices that you can use to recharge a cell phone.
On the other hand, because they serve no real function, it's not entirely wrong to call it a "display cabinet", much like a fan would use to show off a collection of Iron Man action figures:
Individual spaces in a display cabinet may be called "slots", "spaces", "openings", "niches", or various other similar terms.
(Edit) I agree that these can be individually called "stands", or collectively a "rack" of similar objects all hung together. On that note: For whatever reason, a building where aircraft are kept is called a "hangar", which also makes sense for Iron Man's suits.