Wow Nihl! I'm glad your rancorous attack was not directed AT me (still tender from the gut punch though)....but glad I provided you a platform for your rant, which ironically is very much the same convention I have tried to advance for most of the 25 years I have written here.
What I wrote, I thought was being supportive of your interesting and well thought out perspective, including my Sikh anecdote mindful of exactly what you had said.
I will say that after over fifty years of studying arms and armor, I cannot say how many examples of mostly Victorian 'collectors terms' I have sought to place in proper detail, and working with many of the venerable authors now mostly gone, who also sought to 'correct' misnomers and curious colloquial terms for certain weapon forms.
On the European forum, we have been engaged in finding the origins of the 17th century campaign swords called 'walloon'; there have been debates on 'basket hilt' vs. 'claymore' and a book full of such 'classifications' .
In a current project, I found that the Spanish colonial hanger known popularly as the espada ancha, was actually termed in Alta California in that period, 'machete', and that the espada ancha (=Sp.broadsword) term actually referred to the full size swords used by the military at the time.
As most of the literature published to date on these hangers calls them espada anchas, it is hopeless to try to change this to 'machete' which in discussions brings forth an entirely different connotation.
Pant (1980) went through a number of notices of errors in previous works by Rawson and in the most notable case, Egerton (1885) who somehow transposed the term 'katar' to the transverse grip dagger actually termed 'jamadhar' ...and from then on, these familiar daggers became KATARS.
The was carried forth in virtually every published work including Indian arms since......and NOBODY has been able to change it. In most cases, this is noted in various writings, but mostly it is a matter of semantics in knowing which weapon was being discussed.
In many years of research with various authorities on Indian arms, we had great difficulty in tracing the chronological development of the katar, as when reading early period accounts, if the term katar was used, was it the earlier known version with regular hilt, or the jamadhar etc.
We have the curious 'Khyber knife' which somehow became termed the Salawar Yataghan in some sort of Hobson-Jobson .....it is not a knife, but a heavy short sword, and CERTAINLY not a yataghan.....yet in every circle today, these remain a Khyber knife. (actually 'sillawar' appears to be the local Afghan term, but who knows if universal in all tribal dialects there).
I could take the anecdotes and examples of all these, and probably compile them into a book, encyclopedia, perhaps even a movie (which would parallel Ben-Hur or such epic)...but the point is....
This particular dilemma/debate/conundrum has been an ongoing casus belli here for over the decades I have been here, and the contentious warfare has been brutal (just look at our situation here from what I intended as a helpful entry).
We have called this 'the name game' admittedly with spite, as it seems seldom to have achieved much.
As long as I can recall, I have advocated, do not be afraid to use as many words as it takes to describe a weapon, and its components. Collectors often want simple general terms for labels on displays, students of arms prefer qualified and detailed descriptions (in my opinion of course).
As I believe I have told you, I personally applaud your passion and serious approach to the study of arms, but as someone who has also followed your course for most of a lifetime, I can tell you, it is not an easy road. I can assure you the attitude you depict in your post of 'who cares' is hardly a description of my work, but despite your tone, I can appreciate what you are saying as a condition I have encountered for more years than you can imagine.
My best hope is that those of us who wish to seriously learn on and from the weapons we collect work together on reasonable solutions to better describing them, and a way to collectively cross reference terms as required.
In many cases the etymology and linguistic aspects provide colorful history to be added to these, and all the better in understanding them.
Best regards
Jim
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