And it also depends on a few other things, such as what you're trying to communicate.
Alan's got a great point: a jambiya, in the collection of an English-speaking collector, can be a knife, dagger, or sword. Functionally? For most of us, the proper function of daggers and swords is to lie around looking gorgeous and sharp, and very few of us even practice martial arts with our blades, let alone hurt people with them. So functionally, call it what you want. It's going to lie around looking gorgeous and sharp regardless of what you call it.
As for communication, the other point here is that most people here are quite sure that they know what the following terms mean: knife, dagger, short sword, sword. Anyone disagree, besides me?
If we did an exhaustive poll, I think we'd find that we would agree on perhaps 80 percent of cases. If I deliberately chose machetes, long knives, dhas, and similar things that defy easy categorization, I suspect the number of agreements would plummet.
This is not a plea for standardization of terms. Rather it simply points out that we can get into endless arguments, not about the weapons, but about differences in personal definitions and mis-communication based on biases we're not even aware that we have. I'd suggest the best solution to these problems is to recognize when we're in such arguments, laugh, and move on. I'm also quite sure that others will disagree with me on this too, and that's one reason why I keep reading this board.
Best,
F
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