Originally Posted by
Lima Juliet
The origin of the word Soldier wins the argument for me
Were there any members of the Roman Army who didn’t fight? If so, were they paid with something other than a
solidus? If the answer to both of those questions is yes then you might be onto something in an arcane etymological debate, if you came equipped with good historical evidence. But one line plucked from an internet search result does not an argument make. And especially not in the face of straightforward, authoritative dictionary definitions. Two thousand years of linguistic (and military organisational) evolution is a rather different beast to an overnight redefinition.
Honestly, this thread started out by asking what word the RAF could use to match the gender-neutral ‘soldier’ and ‘sailor’, and it now has you arguing not to use those two words either. Despite the fact that they are inclusive words which have long been used to bind together members of the respective services across rank and trade boundaries to help form a cohesive whole - a key strength of a fighting service. This is *precisely* the kind of pernicious spreading effect which many worry about in arguments like this.