Talk:Common weal

Hmmm. Well, it is meant as a disambiguation page. Many disambiguation pages provide definitions at the beginning, and are not considered articles for it. As for "it does not disambiguate pages that might be mistaken for one another", this may be true. If so, it should not be deleted, but rather redirected to commonwealth. However, most English speakers (at least, most North American English speakers) are unfamiliar with the word "weal" and therefore might interpret a name like "League of the Public Weal" as being semantically analogous to something like "Society of United Irishmen", which can be appropriately abbreviated "United Irishmen". (I.e., "The Public Weal" might easily be interpreted as the name of the organization; the same can be said of the War of the Public Weal.) My supposition it that to you, "public weal" is a simple arrangement of words that is easily understood. However, to many it is not easily understood. I might finally add that public weal is a phrase in its own right, not just two separate words. — The Man in Question (gesprec)  ·  (forðung)  05:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Weal means good. The public weal is the public good, not a form of government.  Republic comes from Latin for the public thing, not the public good.  While commonwealth is a form of government, it is never used in English as synonymous with the common good.  The League and the War might be related, but that is best noted by putting each in the "See Also" section of the other's article; there is no need for them to be disambiguated.   RJC  TalkContribs 13:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"Public weal" is used synonymously with the concept of a republic or commonwealth. See, for example, here: http://books.google.com/books?id=rVwLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false (pp. 11, 25, 36, 156, and 159), an early modern English translation of Utopia, where "publyque weale" translates Latin rei publicae (e.g., On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia). For modern usage, see, among others. — The Man in Question (gesprec)  ·  (forðung)  20:26, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, public weal has not been used as a form of government for centuries (the modern work you refer to is quoting the translation of Utopia, not using the phrase that way itself). Merriam Webster lists that usage as obsolete.  One might in principle disambiguate public weal into common good and commonwealth, but that is only because it is a phrase whose archaic meaning differs from its obsolete meaning.  And on balance this still sounds more like a case for the Wiktionary since I can't imagine anyone looking for information on commonwealths or the common good (or even republics) who would type in "public weal" to find it.   RJC  TalkContribs 00:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)