Talk:spiritually

RFC discussion: December 2009

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spiritually

An editor has noted that the word "may refer to any of the senses of the adjective". As such, this adverb has multiple senses requiring multiple definitions and a Translations table cleanup. --EncycloPetey 05:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't trust the senses at spiritual enough to take that approach. For now, could we settle for usage examples or citations illustrating use modifying at least verbs and adjectives (if not adverbs) and clauses/sentences? That would satisfy one kind of need. Adverbs are a bit like inflected forms, but more reminiscent of English verb -ing forms and past participles. It seems like a bridge too far to give such entries a full set of senses and translations. Working on adverbs has reminded me of the importance of stem-word entry quality (especially definitions) for the entry quality of morphologically derived terms. DCDuring TALK 12:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's a quote from Churchill:

The first step in the re-creation of the European Family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral and cultural leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany.

I don't think he wished to imply that a country might literally have a soul, or that these countries must necessarily closely align themselves with a (the same?) church or look to God to guide their policies. Perhaps instead he implies a lesser meaning of "spiritual" that applies (in this case) to countries. Presumably, providing leadership in moral and cultural matters suffices.

Thus two possibilities present themselves: (1) Churchill intended a different meaning of "spiritual" that applies to countries or other collective entities; (2) in this case, "spiritually" is only an approximate (not literal) reference to the adjective. Pingku 15:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)