Alternative Skills

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by weby

A roman Gladius is counted as a shortsword despite some examples being 85cm long and and some arming swords are shorter, but are pointed broadswords..

The Roman gladius and spatha were terms used interchangeably, from what I've been told. Modern scholars and weapon enthusiasts have long after the fact mostly settled on "gladius is a short Roman sword, spatha is a long Roman sword" despite the gradients between the extremes.

Likewise the Japanese terms to (from the Chinese dao), tachi, and katana all simply meaning "sword" or even "knife" depending on the context (tanto for dagger and kaigatana for penknife). This is the sort of thing I picked up on mostly from videogames.