Word-nerds: What does the word soviet mean? Specifically, in the phrase United Soviet Socialist Republics -- I know what United is, I know what Socialist is, I know what a Republic is -- what is the adjective Soviet? When I looked in the (online) dictionary, or otherwise tried to Google, its always something like of or concerning the former Soviet Union, which is pretty-much a non-answer, in my book. So thats my question: what does the word soviet mean? If I have 3 things: * A Purple Union * A European Union * A Soviet Union And I want to describe them to a child. I can describe a union, and I can describe purple and European. So what do I tell them for Soviet? How might the United Socialist Republics be different from that other group? If each had extremely-pedantic membership requirements, how might one group admit members that the other would exclude?
Posted on: Sat, 17 May 2014 14:36:50 +0000