Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Jared Kushner would be proud... (Was: C String terminator) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2020 19:48:38 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 43 Message-ID: <86369iodfd.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <4081ce0c-e0fb-4ada-b8b1-4fb97a1db723@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="33313a58d422a0b61b629db649debaea"; logging-data="19606"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/VH8QYiYkRpngh8Air69ShlGBBki1a7b8=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:0VXmGl/0uFhYiQk1vVVnxIBUFj4= sha1:BPQxM+24G8C1zGT2F9J8Z5i7Lsg= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:151041 Jorgen Grahn writes: > On Sat, 2020-04-04, Malcolm McLean wrote: > >> On Saturday, 4 April 2020 10:00:30 UTC+1, Kenny McCormack wrote: >> >>> In article , >>> James Kuyper babbled: >>> ... >>> >>>> The phrase "High Priests" carries the implication that we claim >>>> authority based upon divine endorsement. As someone who doesn't even >>>> believe in Divinities, I find the suggestion that I'm making such a >>>> claim quite disgusting. What I say is true, if it is true, only because > > ... > >> It's a rather literal interpretation of a metaphor. > > How about this, then? "High priest" implies > > - Member of a closed group without transparency. > - Appointed by some unknown external authority. > - Controls the interpretation of the (divine) law. > > [...] > > There's not really any other way to interpret it. [...] In English (American English, if it's important to be careful), the phrase "high priest" has a common meaning (among several others) that might be expressed as "an acknowledged leader in a particular field", and not necessarily requiring the three attributes you listed, and certainly not needing any relation to any aspect of divinity. This meaning is how I understood the phrase when I read it in the posting upthread, and that understanding has now been reinforced by entries in several online dictionaries. The phrase might be called an idiom or a metaphor, but in any case I don't think there anything wrong either with how it was used or how Malcolm understood it (by which I mean how I think Malcolm understood it, in case that needs saying).