absolute and relative Word strength

[Matthias Wasser]

There are more slaves today than there were at 1 CE, but they comprise a much smaller proportion of the world population.

Is Slavery a stronger or a weaker Word than it was two millennia ago?

[Jason]

I'm tempted to say weaker just because now there is a wider understanding of slavery as evil. When more peoples and cultures thought it was a "natural" thing, that was when it was at its peak in strength.

[Flyndaran]

I would think much stronger as it's now used to describe so much more than actual ownership of people.
Wage-slave, slave/master relationships, slave hard-drives, etc.

[Matthias Wasser]

And abstracting from Slavery? There are a lot of things that are absolutely more prevalent now than in the past, but much less prominent - agriculture, religion, and so on and such forth. What's the general trend for Words of this type?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser

And abstracting from Slavery? There are a lot of things that are absolutely more prevalent now than in the past, but much less prominent - agriculture, religion, and so on and such forth. What's the general trend for Words of this type?

The ultimate source of power for words is presumably humans feeling so strongly about some concept for their daily essence to attach to the word linked to it. At least that seems to be where it comes from in the Marches. So the absolute amount of power available is up more than an order of magnitude in the last few centuries.

What that means for specific words is probably campaign variable. How much of that increase has been captured by Heaven and Hell could certainly vary with your assumptions about additional sides. It's also possible the total number of Words is up by a similar factor - strong feelings that used to feed into the same Word are now support different ones - in which case individual words may not have seen as much of an increase. But sure, relative power should have shifted on concepts a larger or smaller *fraction* of people now feel strongly about. Some Words seem to have countered that by stretching out to cover concepts pretty much unconnected to their original meaning though (e.g. Lightning) so there can be exceptions.

[JCD]

What he said.

To use an example: Agriculture. In the days of yore (70 years ago) people lived and starved according to the vaugeries of the weather. People would take young men and women's into peat bogs and drown them in attempts to make the rains come. Now agriculture is a Farm market visited when one wants to impress a girlfriend.

[malachi666]

Originally Posted by JCD

What he said.

To use an example: Agriculture. In the days of yore (70 years ago) people lived and starved according to the vaugeries of the weather. People would take young men and women's into peat bogs and drown them in attempts to make the rains come. Now agriculture is a Farm market visited when one wants to impress a girlfriend.

Whoa, people drowned other people in bogs to generate rain 70 years ago? Dear God!

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by malachi666

Whoa, people drowned other people in bogs to generate rain 70 years ago? Dear God!

Probably not, places with peat bogs tend to get plenty of rain.

Actually the most recent convincing story of a human sacrifice for rain I can turn up on a quick Google search is a legal case in Rhodesia in 1923, so maybe a little more than 70 years now. There have been a few more recent credible cases for other goals, but rain doesn't seem to one anymore.

[Azel]

-- Everyone knows rain comes from sacrificing virgins to the fire. Son, where does rain come from?
-- Duh, from burning virgins.

(from the movie "Year One". Not necessarily great art, but imminently quotable.)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

There have been a few more recent credible cases for other goals, but rain doesn't seem to one anymore.

People are still persecuted for witchcraft in Sub-Saharan Africa, I suspect that drought is probably as good enough an excuse for a witch-hunt as any.