Revolvers are a subset of pistols.
Revolvers are not a subset of “pistols”.
We all recognize that popular society will create its own dictionary, which anyone and everyone feels entitled to do. I am not a prescriptivist, only a descriptivist when it comes to these things. I am a language maven first of all, sorry I cannot help it. If you are like most people these definitions and uses of these terms come from popular media and “revolver” “pistol” and “gun” are all interchangeable terms. The Oxford definition agrees with you. Webster however draws the distinction. The ATF also but they don’t count. The batmen say that a pistol has a chamber as part of the barrel. British military definitely used “pistol” as hypernym and “revolver” as hyponym agreeing with you.
I offer these thoughts in hopes of any correction or contradiction:
In training as a US Marine you learn you must never call your rifle a “gun”. The purpose for this rule, (I’m guessing) is to humiliate you and have another reason to “punish” you and/or your platoon. Once however you have become a real marine, that same physical “punishment” is not a punishment anymore, because you can now do it easily, but your esprit de corps is now associated with using the right term. I am no Marine, Dad was 3rd Amph. Corps Signal Batt. 1944-5, I have flat feet, but I simply cannot bring myself to use the word “gun” to mean rifle or handgun. Guns are mounted on ships, or caissons. Likewise I can NOT bring myself to allow my sweet wife to call my shotgun a rifle. To her everything is a gun.
“But its a handgun so it is a gun!”
Perhaps, and your car tires are rubber circles, and mothers are birthing people. Why does it matter?
People who carefully use correct terminology are showing both intelligence and membership. When being corrected, it is possible to recognize an implied compliment, as if to say that you are one of us so say it the way we do, and you are thought to be smart enough and important enough to get it right. But who says what is right (especially as the dictionaries disagree)?
(Well yes, I do of course, thank you and I am happy to help.) :-)
“You don’t ‘fire’ a crossbow.”
-Some people think etymology is the way and they commit the etymological falacy. “Usage is king,” as we say.
-Some will say clarity is king, but that goes against the history of human language and is only even possible in English which has twice as many words as needed. Actually it is context that provides the clarity.
-Connotation versus denotation can help but only if you know what that is and your listener or reader knows it too.
-Insider lingo applies here but should not rule in the larger culture.
I offer humbly this suggestion: When the revolver appeared it was such a radical advancement that it could not be called a pistol because in a combat, it was six pistols!
The spanish cavalry surprised everyone one day when they charged. They rode toward the lines like usual but instead of crashing into the line with sabres drawn, at the last moment they all turned left, held up their pistols and fired a single shot. It was devastating.
There is a famous drawing of Blackbeard wearing five pistols. A man with two revolvers was the equivalent of ten or twelve cavalry! My GGGGrandfather was a teamster under Gen’l Wade Hampton. He was armed with a pistol, a Bowie, and a shotgun but no revolver. He considered the Bowie his main weapon because he was very very good with it. He would have loved to have a revolver but no money for that. In 1860 it was ridiculous to confuse the terms
because there was no comparison in terms of effectiveness.
Browning invented the autoloader and as inventor had the right to name his innovation. He used the word pistol, I don’t know why, fine with me. All the technological advancements since have not been so dramatic as to create a new term that captures the language and causes people to tell you that you are using the wrong word. In fact though it is debated ad nauseum, the semi-automatic pistol is just as powerful in a fight as any revolver, I would expect people today to see no need for the distinction, unless they begin to see the revolver as inadequate somehow. “Why you carrying a revolver? Why don’t you get a real gun?”
Here is how I explained it to Wifey, who now, sweet thing she is, the love of my life, tries to use the right words because she thinks it delights me, which it does because she thinks it does.
Arms- because they are an extension of my arm. If you are close enough I will open a hole in you and make your blood spill out. If you are too far away, then i will have to have a longer arm.
Firearms- use gunpowder includes everything. I do not need this word to be gun instead, but that is how all movies and TV shows do it. Why can’t we call TV shows movies?
Long Arms- includes rifles and shotguns.
Handguns- includes pistols, revolvers, and derringers.
Pistols- includes single-shot black powder pistols, 1911’s, and all other semi-automatic handguns any one of which can be called by manufacturer or calibre. Wifey has not gotten to this point yet, “Honey, you left your Sig under the seat of the car; would you please go get it?” She wants so badly to say gun, but she stops and thinks. She looks at it to see what it really is and remembers to call it a pistol. What a sweetheart and so cute and beautiful too!
Revolvers- My personal preference only because I am good with it.
Please correct me K. and congratulations Texas!
A long discourse and you make some good points to be sure. I am, however, a traditionalist and will go with the older definition. Webster’s has become faddish bends whichever way the wind blows. I say that when the revolver came into widespread use it was called a pistol, evidenced by terms used in the common parlance such as “pistoleros” and “pistol fighters” to describe the man armed with a revolver.