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<blockquote data-quote="R_Chance" data-source="post: 8078709" data-attributes="member: 55149">Patriarch was the term in question, but patriarchy certainly relates to it. In short it's an academic usage of the term (patriarchy as an oppressive male dominated society), becoming more widespread. To an extent. I have 80 students taking History B-17A this semester (U.S. History to Reconstruction) and if I said &quot;Patriarch&quot; and asked them the meaning most would draw a blank. Some religious students would think of either Abraham and company or Orthodox Christianity. A few might connect it to &quot;patriarchy&quot; with all the negative consequences inherent in that usage.&nbsp; It came to have this use in the late 20th century in sociology originally. I'm familiar with the usage because one of my degrees is a BA in anthropology. It has come to be more widespread since then. Not everyone is a (fairly) recent college student, academic, or activist. A lot of people just connect it to history, religion, or (in this case) prior D&amp;D usage. I doubt the people who wondered about the objection to this term, in this thread, were connecting it to oppression and realizing why there was an objection. I suggested &quot;Patriarch / Matriarch&quot;, thought about it a bit more and suggested &quot;Ecclesiarch&quot;.It's hard for people to be sensitive when they don't know what the problem is.No, we don't get to determine the development of language. Don't tell the English instructors that though <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> The question is how much the meaning has shifted in the context of your audience. There are a lot of terms / usages that I might take for granted that would leave most people staring. The point is to make your usage clear, to state what the term means (for you). At that point you might find fewer arguments and more discussions.The funny thing being I see your point, and largely agree with you. Isn't this the reason WotC had someone looking at language / usage awhile back (and hopefully still do)?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="R_Chance, post: 8078709, member: 55149"] Patriarch was the term in question, but patriarchy certainly relates to it. In short it's an academic usage of the term (patriarchy as an oppressive male dominated society), becoming more widespread. To an extent. I have 80 students taking History B-17A this semester (U.S. History to Reconstruction) and if I said "Patriarch" and asked them the meaning most would draw a blank. Some religious students would think of either Abraham and company or Orthodox Christianity. A few might connect it to "patriarchy" with all the negative consequences inherent in that usage. It came to have this use in the late 20th century in sociology originally. I'm familiar with the usage because one of my degrees is a BA in anthropology. It has come to be more widespread since then. Not everyone is a (fairly) recent college student, academic, or activist. A lot of people just connect it to history, religion, or (in this case) prior D&D usage. I doubt the people who wondered about the objection to this term, in this thread, were connecting it to oppression and realizing why there was an objection. I suggested "Patriarch / Matriarch", thought about it a bit more and suggested "Ecclesiarch". It's hard for people to be sensitive when they don't know what the problem is. No, we don't get to determine the development of language. Don't tell the English instructors that though :D The question is how much the meaning has shifted in the context of your audience. There are a lot of terms / usages that I might take for granted that would leave most people staring. The point is to make your usage clear, to state what the term means (for you). At that point you might find fewer arguments and more discussions. The funny thing being I see your point, and largely agree with you. Isn't this the reason WotC had someone looking at language / usage awhile back (and hopefully still do)? [/QUOTE]

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