Talk:Secular Games

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 04:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Secular Games → Saecular Games – They were not secular in the modern sense. We should clarify this in the title. See source in article

Formerly translated 'Secular Games', but recent scholarship prefers 'Saecular Games' to avoid confusion with the modern concept of the secular that implies disconnection from religious matters. See, for example, Rüpke, Jörg (2018). Pantheon: A new history of Roman religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 193–203. ISBN 978-1-4008-8885-6. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 03:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. This Google ngram indicates that "Secular Games" remains the usual formulation in English-language publications by a large margin, with no long-term trend towards "Saecular Games". I'm actually a little surprised by this result, because I perceive a trend towards hypercorrectness in modern English transliteration of Greek and Latin words—but evidently that hasn't been the case here; if anything, "Secular Games" is increasing its share of overall use. I note that my search was case-insensitive and could theoretically sweep in generic uses of the phrase; this was intentional, since it may not be capitalized in some sources. However, I cannot think of any context where the phrase is likely to be given a generic use, except possibly within the field of Classics. While there is a Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I don't think they're likely to distinguish between "religious" and "secular" games, since their members participate in athletics generally, rather than putting on "games" for a specifically religious purpose. P Aculeius (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I'm not finding much of any references to "saecular" games. "Secular games" seems dominant. I sympathize with the OP, but then again, Romans have other weird things, e.g. "Social War", which to modern ears would have a different meaning. I guess moderns just have to deal with it. Walrasiad (talk) 03:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Walrasiad, and suggest restoring the lede to the original form ("Secular") as well. I'm not convinced that a 2018 journal article is really a powerful enough source to announce that nobody uses the traditional translation. SnowFire (talk) 00:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]