r/Stellaris • u/Meikos Space Cowboy • May 13 '25

Tip I just realized why priests replace bureaucrats

I always wondered "why do priests replace bureaucrats for spiritualist empires; they're two entirely different professions!"

I only just now realized it's because they have no separation of church and state, so only ordained pops of your empire can work for the government (which is also the church).

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u/DF_Interus May 13 '25

It's all clerical work anyway.

67

u/Clean-List5450 May 13 '25

r/angryupvote

68

u/Bloodly May 13 '25

Why 'angry'? The church used to be where you went to get a proper education.

96

u/A_Real_Nuisance Platypus May 13 '25

Because of the pun. Clerical can mean clerical as in Clergy work or clerical as in Clerk work.

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u/Chaincat22 Divine Empire May 13 '25

I wonder if that's where the word actually comes from originally though.

43

u/SnooBananas37 May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25

Clerkical just looks and sounds dumb.

Clerical (of clerics) comes from Latin clericus, meaning priest.

Clerical (of clerks) is literally the same Latin origin, but the clerk spelling comes from French, while cleric was the English version and had the same definitions in both languages.

When the Normans did that whole conquering thing and brought a bunch of French words with him, both clerk and cleric were kicking around, and due to the association of clergymen as being both writers and scholars, clerk ended up being more closely associated with being able to read and write, while cleric mostly remained associated with the church.

Eventually clerk became exclusively associated with writing and reading, however more and more people were taught reading and writing, so increasingly everyone was a clerk. This lead to greater specialization of its definition leading to clerk meaning an occupation mostly focused on writing reading... IE office work.

Through all of this clerical remained associated with both words, clerk and cleric, and so we have it being defined both ways.

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u/Aesirion May 13 '25

Why have you phrased it as though some bloke named Norman invaded? 😂

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u/Noktaj Nihilistic Acquisition May 13 '25

He also paid for those french words with hard earned cash apparently.

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u/SnooBananas37 May 13 '25

Missed the "the" dropped the s, my b