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Victorian Salad (thelemmy.club)
submitted 16 hours ago by [M] to c/historymemes@quokk.au
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Context: Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Ponte y Palacios Blanco also known as Simón Bolívar was a revolutionary figure and namesake for the country of Bolivia.

The Victorian Era is named after Queen Victoria and her depressing clothing choices.

Caesar Salad is named after a Mexican Italian chef, Caesar Cardini. Who is well known for overseeing the Roman Republics collapse into an empire.

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[–] 2 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

He's also the origin of Tzar, living on as dictators in Eastern Europe and the US.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    Also the origin of king, which is what tzar means.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago (1 child)

    So really all of them just mean Leader. It's actually something I find interesting. The way we say leader is highly determined by if we like the person/their country/where we are. Like everytime you hear the news say "Supreme Leader"? Thats just them choosing to translate whatever the local version of "leader" is into english in an inflammatory way. It's also why we call the Saudi Crown Prince that and not "Supreme Leader of Saudi Arabia" because they're an ally. Despite him being a total despot. Caesar was literally the word for the leader in the roman empire. It's what you called the Emperor. So all the languages that got latin influence in them have words for leader that come from it.

    Respected Comrade General Secretary in Korea becomes "Supreme Leader" in the US.

    Ayatollah meaning "Sign of God" in Iran becomes "Supreme Leader" in the US.

    Kamala Harris being called the "Border Tzar" in the election is just her being the lead for border issues. But saying that is boring so they say Tzar.

    It's literally all just PR. Which is why so many places words for leader come from Caesar. Because Rome was seen as this impressive place and future leaders wanted to emulate it. So they called themselves after its leaders. Then you'd have a revolution and the old terms would be toxic. So the new governments would come up with new terms. Executive, Prime Minister, President, General Secretary, Premier, etc. So many words all to mean the same damn thing just because of PR.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago

    Euphemism treadmill.

    I always thought it was interesting how the term "president" began to proliferate very quickly after the US empire got big enough.

    I think Caesar in particular is more interesting. The original Latin pronunciation is (somewhat disputed, being a dead language and all) likely something along the lines of Kai-tzar. Western Europe emphasized the first syllable, leading to king, while Eastern Europe emphasized the second syllable, leading to tzar.

    This also reveals specific linguistic differences in how language works. English to a great extent, and other romance languages to a lesser extent, usually have the accent on the first syllable of the word, while eastern european languages have a lot more variety in which syllable of the word is emphasized.

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