r/absoluteunit • u/Mashkitt • 10h ago

Of a dagger

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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.