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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lordmarcovan, post: 2572743, member: 10461&quot;]And therein lies the rub.&nbsp; If you&#039;re a regular person, the lesser-known term can prove confusing.&nbsp; If you&#039;re a scholar, and can distinguish between terms like &quot;<i>historical</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>historiographical</i>&quot;, good for you.&nbsp; Go with &quot;Romaion&quot;.&nbsp; Other smart people will understand you.&nbsp; (And there is certainly nothing wrong with being scholarly or smart.)&nbsp; But otherwise, for a <i>general</i> audience, &quot;Byzantine&quot; works.&nbsp; And is more likely to be understood.</p><p><br /></p><p>Being a non-specialized, &quot;general practitioner&quot; numismatist as I am, I prefer terminology the common man can understand.&nbsp; I sometimes show my coins (or their digital equivalent) to noncollectors or people who collect in different areas than mine.&nbsp; I don&#039;t want to shut them out by using difficult to understand terminology that only insiders might understand (though since I am rather wordy and longwinded, I do lose people sometimes).</p><p><br /></p><p>This is a reason I put Wikipedia links at the bottom of my writeups, for folks who might want to read more about a particular ruler or period in history that the coin represents.&nbsp; (Real scholars sneer at Wikipedia, too, but it&#039;s convenient, and sometimes <i>written</i> by scholars.)&nbsp; Anything I can do to make a coin more interesting to a wider audience, I&#039;m all for it.&nbsp; It has inspired a few people to take an interest in some kinds of coins they otherwise would never have considered.</p><p><br /></p><p>I got two PMs with coin questions just this morning.&nbsp; And though my knowledge doesn&#039;t hold a candle to that of the specialists, I get the questions.&nbsp; Maybe because people know I&#039;ll try and break it down in a way they can understand (assuming I understand it myself, of course).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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