Quote:
Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
The word "warrior" can be used in many ways, we can find "keyboard warriors", "weekend warriors", we can find football teams that are some sort of warrior or other. When we get into colloquial usage there is no end to the warriors we can find.
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True enough. Though i certainly was not using the word in this context in ANY of the examples i gave.
The four different dictionaries i quoted were all online editions. The Oxford example i used was the Oxford Learners Dictionary, so not their regular edition. But i would consider ALL these sources as legitimate sources for "Standard English" usage. Surely you don't believe your Oxford dictionary is the sole source for such information. I have no reason to believe that i am using the word "warrior" in anything but a standard English context. The examples of uses you used above were not ones that i was considering at all.
We are quibbling about semantics here Alan, but some of your response seems to ignore everything else i stated. No one claimed Bali was a "warrior society" or that the entire population of Bali are/were "warrior people". But clearly the Balinese did occasionally engage in war, and when there are wars, there are warriors.
In my comments you will find that i agreed completely with you that the nature of the keris should not being connected to warfare and also related this to Jeff. I will say now that i also agree that what happened in Bali in the 1960s has nothing to do with warriors and understand your reaction to Gustav's comments.
However, in discussing the Cekah Solas hilt of his keris my research brought up writings by Lalu Djelenga stating that these hilts were favored by warriors. What am i to make of this source? And numerous sources do indeed refer to the Satrias, what is the Kshatriya caste in Bali, as members of a "warrior" caste. Yes, i completely understand the these aristocratic knights should not necessarily be seen in the same light as, say, an Apache warrior, but the term warrior caste is associated with them in many references so it is hard to ignore. Again, i think this becomes merely a matter of semantics. My point in bringing up this information was only to try to establish some further information about this hilt form and it's possible place in the world of Balinese keris culture. To keep the discussion focussed on the object at hand. Unfortunately this debate about the word "warrior" has somewhat derailed my intent and we are no longer discussing Jeff's keris at all, but rather word usage and what each of us feel is "Standard English".
