To my mind, Ban has always meant permanent.
“You’re banned from this place! You’ll never be allowed in again!”
While I’ve always thought of Suspend as being temporary.
“You’re being suspended from school for 1 week, over fighting.”
Ban:
- to prohibit especially by legal means
- bar entry
- to debar temporarily especially from a privilege, office, or function
- a: to cause to stop temporarily
b: to set aside or make temporarily inoperative - to defer to a later time on specified conditions
- to hold in an undetermined or undecided state awaiting further information
When I hear someone mention they were banned my reaction is: “Holy shit! WTF did you do to earn that!” Then I find out it was only for a day or three: “Oh… That’s not a Ban! That’s minor. Go touch grass. You’ll be fine.”
I’ve been banned from subreddits and communities a few times. At least once I never even noticed because it was so short.
How is it a Ban if I didn’t even notice?
Why did Ban in online forums and games, come to mean temporary?
Is it simply an example of the intensification of language? To make something mundane, seem more severe than it is?
Does it bother anyone else? Or am I alone here?
Nothing in the definition of ban says it has to be permanent.
Nothing implies it’s anything other than permanent. While Suspend explicitly defines itself as a temporary Ban.
No, it doesn’t imply anything, you’re inferring.
Definitions are written to be clear. Anything beyond that is the reader’s inference.
Traditionally terms for temporary things include that aspect in their definition, like the definitions of Suspend I gave. By tradition of definition, permanent is implied unless otherwise defined.
Can you give an example of a word for a temporary condition or situation, that isn’t explicitly defined as such?
That’s just straight not true. For instance hunger. It’s definition doesn’t say it’s temporary but that doesn’t mean it’s permanent.
Here is a little bit of muddiness. If there is no clearly defined end of something, is it permanent, or temporary? I would argue, since nearly everything changes and virtually nothing is permanent in an absolute sense; Permanent can only reasonably mean, no predetermined end time. Hunger has no defined amount of time. It may in fact last until death, making it quite permanent from the point of view of the individual experiencing it. So hunger in fact would, for the purpose of a definition, be permanent.
Yeah okay, but you don’t say I’m temporarily hungry the same way you don’t need to say I’m temporarily banned.
You’re hungry until you eat. You are banned until you are unbanned.
There isn’t a predetermined end point with hunger. No timer. That’s the difference.
Breakfast.
It’s a temporary ban. People just don’t say that. They are banned whether it’s temporary or not. They aren’t using the word incorrectly.