Attend/hold services

Attend/hold services
 

In an "auto-examen" ( :thinking: ) about Medieval Church, I wrote:

...a priest who attended regular services...

The book said that they "held regular services".

May I say "attend" instead "hold" in this case? "Atender" would be the commonest word in Spanish in this case. :thinking:

Thanks. :)

It depends what his function was. If he organized the services and had a leading role, then he "held regular services".

If he was just one of the congregation, then he attended, as did everybody else. :)

He organised. Then hold, I guess. :sad:

In contemporary English, the parishioners attend services and the preacherman holds services. In Engish attend mostly means acudir, but it
also means to care for or pay attentions. This second meaning is not as
common,

Is the preacherman a priest?

This depends on the particular type of Christian service. A priest is only for Catholic services. :)

What is the name for a Protestant "priest", then?

Vicar (in the Church of England). In the USA, they have various other names.

In NAm English the Protestant counterpart of vicar or priest is a minister,
or less formally, a preacher...

most common

In the US, in the Protestant sects of the church, you usually have a "pastor" or "preacher"

Sometimes the term "minister" is used, but it does not always mean the leader of the church as pastor or preacher means. You can have a "Minister of Music" or a "Minister of Seniors", etc.... In large churches, you usually have a Head Pastor and Associate Pastor.

Thanks for your answers. :)

That's curious that "vicario", in Spanish and Catholic Church can mean both a priest and somebody who helps the priest. "Ministro de la Iglesia" and "pastor" are also terms used in Catholicism.

Awaken, last year I studied that "commoner" or "commonest" is correct in English (BrE). There must be a thread about it somewhere. ;)

Correct. Monosyllabic and disyllabic adjectives normally add -er, polysyllabic ones normally use more, with some overlap with disyllabic ones.

On inspecting BNC and COCA, I find that

BrE,
more common: 658
commoner: 138

AmE
more common 2431
commoner 227

So whereas more common is commoner than commoner everywhere, more common is 5 times commoner than commoner in BrE, but 10 times commoner than commoner in AmE

All clear?

And for commonest:

BrE
most common 1111
commonest 302

AmE
most common 5123
commonest 144

Here the ratios are BrE 4 to 1, AmE 35 to 1, so the American commonest is much less common than the BrE commonest

To join the discussion on clergy late...

"Preacherman" is a very American word. In BNC there are only seven instances, and they're all in the same novel, which appears to be set in the USA. (Mind you, it doesn't appear common in en-us either - 10 instances in COCA, although from more than one source).

A "priest" in English can be Catholic, Orthodox, or from a number of non-Christian religions. Its virtual non-usage in Protestantism is probably because one of the main points of contention in the Reformation was the "priesthood of all believers" - the Protestant doctrine that any Christian can come to God without an intermediary.

"Vicar", "rector", "curate", and "parson" are all used in the Anglican church, with different shades of meaning. "Curate" is also used in a Catholic context, although it is not necessarily a direct equivalent of the Spanish cognate "cura".

Non-conformist churches use a wide variety of names for church leaders. Presbyters, pastors, ministers, elders, even apostles.

Thanks. :)

Reading my notes again, I've seen "Druidic priests", so I guess that's the reason why "priest" is used in this context (Romanisation), because of those "non-Christian religions". :thinking:

In this case, there is not much evidence of what the Druid religion consisted of, other than they appeared to be a religous caste. So the 'priest' is an invention (presumably of catholics) for the status they had, for want of a better word. :)

Sospecho que el autor escribe para gente que no conoce nada de nada de esas culturas, porque la palabra inglesa para un sacerdote druídico es "druid", ya está.

También en español se dice "druida"... a lo mejor el autor no leyó nunca un ejemplar de Astérix. :rolleyes:

@Perikles: Do you mean "Norma" didn't have the job that Bellini made her sing about? ;)

Es un libro de historia. :thinking:

De todos modos, aunque en españo también se dice "druida", a la hora de definir lo que era un druida podemos decir que eran los sacerdotes de las religiones de las antiguas Galia y Britania. También existían los sacerdotes y sacerdotisas en Grecia y Roma. Priests? :thinking:

:lol: It's possible :lol:

Yes, but their function was quite different. There was no organized religion with some alleged sacred text and unity of conception equivalent to Christianity, so the term 'priests' (usually Greek hiereis, Roman sacerdotes) is very misleading. 'Priest' was usually some honorary position for a specific function held by somebody important, but rarely a full-time job. The Greeks had priests and priestesses (males for gods, females for goddesses), serving specific cities, but the Romans only had males formed into brotherhoods (sodales).

I would normally leave it there, but I suppose I have to mention the Vestal Virgins (an exception), because if I don't, somebody else will. :rolleyes: :D

¿Qué tal las carmentas y las monetales? ;)