House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 180949

> Goddlefrood the prevaricator:
> They (house-elves) do, IMO, more closely resemble vassals 
> than slaves, even if there are definitions of vassal around 
> that aver to slave being a synonym of vassal. It most 
> assuredly is not the same at all. My preferred definition 
> would be this:
> 
> "a person holding a fief; a person who owes allegiance and
> service to a feudal lord [syn: vassal, liege, liegeman, liege 
> subject, feudatory]"
> 
> Taken from WordNet 2.1.

Goddlefrood the indecisive:

What this ignores, and what assuredly will be pointed out by others 
in response to post #180978, is that the majority of definitions of 
the word vassal refer to it being the same as slave. (It just has a 
kinder ring to it).

Some of those definitions:

"2. A subject; a dependent; a servant; a bondman; a slave."
>From 1913 Webster

"3. In aftertimes, this word was used to signify a species of 
slave who owed servitude, and was in a state of dependency on 
a superior lord."
>From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) 

Moby Thesaurus words for "vassal":
bondmaid, bondman, bondslave, bondsman, bondswoman, captive,
chattel, chattel slave, churl, client, concubine, creature,
debt slave, dependent, feudal, feudatory, flunky, follower,
galley slave, hanger-on, helot, homager, inferior, lackey, 
liege, liege man, liege subject, minion, myrmidon, odalisque, 
peon, retainer, serf, servant, servile, slave, stooge, subject, 
subordinate, subservient, theow, thrall, tributary, underling, 
understrapper, villein, yeoman

Goddlefrood the befuddled:

So, there are a whole number of words that we could use other 
than slave, vassal being simply one of them.

Countering myself before someoine else does :-)