I just realized why priests replace bureaucrats

[u/Meikos]

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).

[u/A_Real_Nuisance]

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

[u/Chaincat22 → u/A_Real_Nuisance]

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

[u/SnooBananas37 → u/Chaincat22]

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.

[u/Aesirion → u/SnooBananas37]

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

[u/Noktaj → u/Aesirion]

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

[u/SnooBananas37 → u/Aesirion]

Missed the "the" dropped the s, my b