In fairness, even this just seems like those two authors are the only ones using this term in this way, almost like they intentionally chose a word to specifically use in a way that didn’t agree with the way everyone understands it.
Further, I don’t think it’s tricky reasonable to be snotty about it when you’re choosing to use the term in this one very specific, abnormal way without explaining why.
Like…they might just as well have called their book Chocolatey Cycles. Most people wouldn’t make the connection unless they were familiar with the work, and would think that it’s a typo or other error.
Simply put, your referencing this work doesn’t make me think “Oh! They were actually right about the word!”, rather, it makes me think, “Oh…they, and the authors of that book, were all wrong about the word.”
The etymology of the word secular from latin is “of a generation”. So while it is a non-standard use of the word, it can be used to refer to something that happens once in a generation or once in a large amount of time like a century.
c. 1300, seculer, in reference to clergy, “living in the world, not belonging to a religious order,” also generally, “belonging to the state” (as opposed to the Church), from Old French seculer, seculare (Modern French séculier) and directly from Late Latin saecularis “worldly, secular, pertaining to a generation or age,” in classical Latin “of or belonging to an age, occurring once in an age,” from saeculum “age, span of time, lifetime, generation, breed.” …
The ancient Roman ludi saeculares was a three-day, day-and-night celebration coming once in an “age” (120 years). Ecclesiastical writers in Latin used it as those in Greek did aiōn “of this world” (see cosmos). It is the source of French siècle “century.” The meaning “of or belonging to an age or a long period,” especially occurring once in a century, was in English from 1590s.
Generation is commonly used in the sense of a fairly short span of time, ~20 years. Secular cycle, googling quickly, seems to be using secular more in the ‘lifetime/age’ sense since the cycles are over the course of a couple centuries.
I’m gonna go hard for a second here and say that they most certainly do not look “really silly”.
Your echoing of a term unique to a single author and acting unimpressed when someone hasn’t heard of it is weird. If you were couth, you’d have linked to the work or defined the term after using it. As it stands, your use of the term “secular cycle” is nothing more than a smarmy debate-trap with absolutely no constructive merit.
a
: occurring once in an age or a century
b
: existing or continuing through ages or centuries
c
: of or relating to a long term of indefinite duration
The word “secular” has been used in this manner referring to things over a much longer term in multiple Fields including investment, astronomy, medicine, sociology, climate. It’s in the dictionary. Its Used in major newspapers. When I used the term originally referring to secular cycles specifically, I immediately followed the use of the term with a general explanation of what I meant, it was the next sentence in the same paragraph.
Hey, friend? My post specifically referred to your laughable use of the entire phrase. The idea that you’re now backpedaling into defending just a portion of that phrase indicates exactly how right I was.
You end up looking really silly when you say something like that.
https://peterturchin.com/books/secular-cycles/
In fairness, even this just seems like those two authors are the only ones using this term in this way, almost like they intentionally chose a word to specifically use in a way that didn’t agree with the way everyone understands it.
Further, I don’t think it’s tricky reasonable to be snotty about it when you’re choosing to use the term in this one very specific, abnormal way without explaining why.
Like…they might just as well have called their book Chocolatey Cycles. Most people wouldn’t make the connection unless they were familiar with the work, and would think that it’s a typo or other error.
Simply put, your referencing this work doesn’t make me think “Oh! They were actually right about the word!”, rather, it makes me think, “Oh…they, and the authors of that book, were all wrong about the word.”
The etymology of the word secular from latin is “of a generation”. So while it is a non-standard use of the word, it can be used to refer to something that happens once in a generation or once in a large amount of time like a century.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secular
https://www.etymonline.com/word/secular
Generation is commonly used in the sense of a fairly short span of time, ~20 years. Secular cycle, googling quickly, seems to be using secular more in the ‘lifetime/age’ sense since the cycles are over the course of a couple centuries.
I’m gonna go hard for a second here and say that they most certainly do not look “really silly”.
Your echoing of a term unique to a single author and acting unimpressed when someone hasn’t heard of it is weird. If you were couth, you’d have linked to the work or defined the term after using it. As it stands, your use of the term “secular cycle” is nothing more than a smarmy debate-trap with absolutely no constructive merit.
You wanna go hard? Let’s go hard.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secular.asp
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2002/08/aa1923/aa1923.html
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/49/4/1520-0493_1921_49_230_tsvoc_2_0_co_2.xml
https://study.com/learn/lesson/secular-trend-puberty-overview-causes.html
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-230-27468-6_9
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secular
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/24/business/market-watch-oil-spurt-a-rally-that-few-believe.html “Sure, there can be market hiccups, but the secular trend is against rising prices of real things and for rising prices of stocks and bonds.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-risks-falling-off-a-global-cliff/2012/10/25/38cdc85c-1ebe-11e2-9cd5-b55c38388962_story.html “If so, a long-term secular trend of higher interest rates, a lower dollar and stunted GDP growth would contaminate an already polluted fiscal chemistry lab with a fiscal gap of growing and unacceptably large proportions.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-recession-is-over-but_b_375770 “The secular force is the D-process and the deleveraging, so I expect deflation to be the resulting secular trend more than inflation.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/18/health/13-reasons-why-study-suicides-trnd/index.html “I take issue with their analysis which did not take into account the secular trend in suicide and the large increase that occurred in 2017 in young men.”
The word “secular” has been used in this manner referring to things over a much longer term in multiple Fields including investment, astronomy, medicine, sociology, climate. It’s in the dictionary. Its Used in major newspapers. When I used the term originally referring to secular cycles specifically, I immediately followed the use of the term with a general explanation of what I meant, it was the next sentence in the same paragraph.
Hey, friend? My post specifically referred to your laughable use of the entire phrase. The idea that you’re now backpedaling into defending just a portion of that phrase indicates exactly how right I was.