There are a number of compounds in English of the form "noun wars," e.g. "Star Wars," "mommy wars," "culture wars." Why do these show "wars" in the plural? It seems like normally "wars" would pertain to a sequence of conflicts with more or less well-defined endpoints, whereas these phrases actually describe conflicts that have been going on more or less continually (I'd hesitate to say the conflicts are unitary since at least the latter two are quite complex and multifaceted phenomena; but then again actual armed conflicts are often complicated too).
I wonder if this is perhaps a snowclone; if so, what would the original member of the set be?
Best Answer
Why so? We find, for example, the
Roman-Etruscan Wars
andThe Wars of the Roses
, yet thosewars
had no clearly defined endpoints. There were generally no official peace treaties designating the end of those conflicts - they raged on for a certain period, and were then resolved, for whatever reason.The simple answer to your question is that since the
culture wars
orthe browser wars
are compromised of numerous points of conflict within a fairly discreet period of time, they are referred to aswars
. There is no specific endpoint to the individual conflicts, but they are, at large, confined to a particular era, and in a sense characterize that era, because of their scope, and the public's awareness of them.So, in such context, the use of
wars
is used to designated a group of related, well known and important conflicts that occur within a fairly discreet period of time. Although each individual conflict might have no specific endpoint, the era characterizing such conflicts does. Theculture wars
are still being fought, but at some point in the future, they will end, and humanity will move on to otherwars
. Thebrowser wars
ended some years ago. No clear victor emerged and no peace treaty was signed, but no one is really fighting those battles orwars
any more. When exactly didthe browser wars
end? Hard to say. But it's clear that today they are over, and we have entered a new period - that ofthe Tablet Wars
.