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The original meaning of "militia" from Latin was "defense activity",
and most of the Founders were Latin-literate. The idiom of the era
(continuing to our day) was to often use a word for an activity to
also mean those engaged in the activity, or the occasion or place of
the activity. This makes it a kind of polyseme called an actronym.
If you want to get a better sense of the meaning of the term, just
substitute "defense activity" for "militia" wherever it occurs in
the Constitution and other writings of the era. From this one can
also discern the various polysemic usages, including the distinction
between those required to muster for regular organization and
training, and those who may actually respond to an emergency. For more on this see http://constitution.org/cs_defen.htm On 08/21/2012 05:22 PM, Phil Lee wrote:
-- Jon ---------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society http://constitution.org 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- |
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