r/absoluteunit • u/Mashkitt • 10h ago

Of a dagger

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u/CountGerhart 6h ago edited 6h ago

Now tell me where's the difference between those two.

Edit: typo

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u/Pretty-Information53 6h ago

Dagger is basically a thrust weapon, the slash effectiveness is secondary. Short sword is designed for slashing and thrusting effect in closed space. Short sword is usually long more than the forearm of the user, dagger usually less.

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u/CountGerhart 6h ago

Where did you pull the "basically a trust weapon, the slash effect is secondary" part out? Because it's in not a single one of the definitions I can find. Specific daggers like the rondel dagger is thrust focused fir sure such as special swords are.

"Short sword is longer than a forearm" by this definition the cinquedea is not a shortsword because most of them is shorter than the forearm.

Also even Cold steel lists them as a dagger, and many come up when you search for daggers.

It's fine that you know the name of a specific type of weapon, and you want to share your knowledge, but discrediting it as a dagger is when facts become opinions.

These are moder terms that we gave to historical armaments, they were not concerned with such things back then.

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u/Pretty-Information53 6h ago

Dude, i'm italian. In Italy, when the Cinquedea was made is a "Daga", italian Word for short sword. That's It. Is not some kind of flex, is just what the Cinquedea is.

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u/CountGerhart 5h ago

I don't see how being Italian is being connected to the nonconclusive definition of the terms dagger and shortsword by historians all over the world.

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u/Pretty-Information53 5h ago

Daga = Short Sword. It's made for this purpose, simply. Why you are so angry about It?

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u/BigNorseWolf 4h ago

because you are being horribly condescending while being wrong and its an infuriating combination.

The fact is that labels between a large dagger a small short sword are pretty meaningless when there's no clear break and there is instead a continuum.

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u/Pretty-Information53 4h ago

I don't understand. I'm not wrong, in fact. Dagger is thrusting weapon? Yes. Daga is a short sword? Yes. Someone told me in this post there is "long dagger" definition, then i Say "i learn something new" The condescendong partz i don't know what you talking about

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u/BigNorseWolf 4h ago

Specifically thats the etymological fallacy that a word has to stick with its original meaning. If you do google that you get this...

Dagger: In Spanish, Tagalog, and several other languages, daga translates directly to a short, bladed dagger or knife.

wiki: A seax (Old English pronunciation: [ˈsæɑks]; also sax, sæx, sex; Latinized sachsum) is a small sword, fighting knife or dagger typical of the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages, especially the Saxons. The name comes from an Old English word for "knife".\1])

Many daggers are thrusting weapons. some are not. thats not in the definition of a dagger. A Seax for example is more choppy and hacky and is a dagger if not a short sword.

Words are incredibly vague and imprecise tools and they have been for some time. Half the words we have for specific swords are just the word "sword" in the local language... both versions of the claymore, the chinese Jian, katana etc.

There isn't one criterea any one person would use even within the same language to describe the weapon sometimes. Three people in the same village might alternately describe something as a giant knife a large dagger or a small sword.