World Revealed: The world's happiest nations as political upheaval sees Egypt fall in rankings

[Accname]

Plunder is to steal, like you plunder a cave of treasure you found. Pillage is usually to steal everything and then destroy everything else. Like you pillage a town, kill everyone there, and THEN steal their stuff.

So what is the difference between "to plunder" and "to steal"?

 

[Solu9]

plunder - Etymologically, it means "rob of household goods," from Dutch plunde/plunne, "household goods."

Isn't "steal" just the generic term?

Edit:
It seems "plunder" is a single household while"pillage" is a whole town.
Oh and pillage involves violence.

 

[camelCase]

PILLAGE ALL THE HOLES!

Doesn't have the same ring as smash =/

 

[iPeez]

If you are unhappy then stay away.
We don't want unhappiness to infiltrate our bubblejoy!

Yeah the first world bubble is fun :'(

 

[Varine]

So what is the difference between "to plunder" and "to steal"?

Plunder would be like taking something as your 'reward' for whatever, stealing is to just take something that isn't yours.

 

[Accname]

Plunder would be like taking something as your 'reward' for whatever, stealing is to just take something that isn't yours.

Interesting article I found while googling this:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/42342/distinction-between-pillage-and-plunder
Especially this excerpt is noteworthy:

[...] On page 554 of The new encyclopædia; or, Universal dictionary of arts and sciences they define Pillage by using plunder. An later on page 687 they define plunder using pillage. [...]

In my native language there are 2 words quite similar to pillage and plunder (the dictionary lists both as possible translations for either pillage and plunder).
One of them means to take stuff by force.
The other means to take stuff by force, and, trying to destroy / damage everything you can not carry.

Like, either robbing somebody from all of his valueables, or, robbing him and then killing his dog and burning his house down.

 

[Varine]

Eh, the thing about English (and in my opinion most languages, but I'm obviously most familiar with English) is that there are no real synonyms usually. Almost every word has an explicit meaning that differentiates it from other words with similar definitions, even though they are, in general, taken to be directly synonymous. But yeah, close enough.

Also, it seem plunder is more of a piratey thing to do. http://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

 

[Accname]

Eh, the thing about English is that there are no real synonyms usually. Almost every word has an explicit meaning that differentiates it from other words with similar definitions...

In my opinion, there is no such thing as a general meaning of a word. There is only a conventional norm which many abide by.
A language, and all of its words, is just a tool crafted by man to be worked with. It can solve problems and be used for recreational purposes. But its use is always correct as long as its affect is exactly what the user desired.
As long as I understand what you are trying to say you use your language correctly and nobody can tell you otherwise.

Damn. That doesnt sound like trolling at all, so: Firecat is stupid. Just saying.

 

[Varine]

Eh, that's the normal understanding of it, but that doesn't work for a lot of theoretical analysis, or etymology (which is probably more important than analysis). Languages evolve like everything else, and the method of its use do as well, but there are rules that govern it, however, like most rules, they are mostly ignored, thus leading to people being unable to read a lot of old books with much ease since the language of the late 1800's is significantly different today.

And an interesting note about me, my favorite word is clip. It's the only word that means both itself and it's antonym, as far as I know.

 

[Accname]

Because people analyze it the wrong way.
You have to analyze language like a tool; like a hammer or an axe for example.

Its just a combination of sounds. Arranging them in the right order brings forth certain associations from people who are familiar with these sounds.
Etymology should become a subclass of psychology; trying to explain how this particular set of sounds has come to be associated with a certain meaning.

 

[Varine]

That goes back to early languages. There's a whole book on morphemes. I also have this really cool book on the different sounds the world uses to form coherent language that I haven't even really looked at since I bought it... should really get around to that. Anyway, when you look back to Sumerian and Akkaidian they kind of worked like that. Sentences were like a series of syllables, rather than what we usually speak where a series of syllables makes up isolated syntactic elements, which lead to a full sentence. Something like that anyway....

 

[FireCat]

Plunder would be like taking something as your 'reward' for whatever.

But It's still stealing!

 

[Varine]

No. It's plundering.

 

[FireCat]

Stealing! You steal stuff from a place or person.

 

[Accname]

Stealing! You steal stuff from a place or person.

"Stealing" is such a harsh word. I would prefer "illegal transportation of worldly possessions".

 

[Varine]

"Stealing" is such a harsh word. I would prefer "illegal transportation of worldly possessions".

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I borrowed this with my explicit permission.

 

[Accname]

I am talking about forced involuntary donations.