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Jesus was a carpenter. According to some sources, when his dad couldn't fit a board for a bed, the young Jesus just stretched them to make them the same length. Still, he is called a carpenter.

If Jesus was an archivist, and could perform similarly superhuman feats (such as re-filing all the records in Library of Congress with simply a spoken command) -- would he still be called an "archivist", or something, how should I say? Grander sounding.

Cris
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  • What does that contextualization have to do with archiving? It's just an example of someone who is fanatically overprotective of [his archives, or ANYTHING]. – njboot Jun 08 '14 at 01:10
  • Well exactly, what DOES it have to do with archiving? So this person is an archivist plus that. What would you call that? – Cris Jun 08 '14 at 01:13
  • It has nothing to do with archiving, that's my point. There is no word for "fanatically overprotective archivist." – njboot Jun 08 '14 at 01:23
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    People can be correctly called more than one thing. Call the man a Antarctican, a gun-nut, a treasure hoarder, a survivalist, and an adventurer, he's still an archivist. – Neil W Jun 08 '14 at 01:37
  • Are you thinking of anarchist?: a person who believes in or tries to bring about anarchy. nihilist insurgent agitator subversive terrorist revolutionary revolutionist insurrectionist – Mari-Lou A Jun 08 '14 at 06:26
  • Please elaborate on what is "extreme" about archivist or the Q. may get closed any moment now. – Kris Jun 08 '14 at 09:48
  • A word for someone who fanatically carries out their archivist duties, someone who is the best and most significant archivist in the world, a hero of the profession, a people's archivist and an archivists' archivist. The world's best archivist, hands-down. What would the word for that be? A word with gravitas. – Cris Jun 08 '14 at 11:31
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    I can't help but ask, are rodents really a problem in Antarctica? – Håkan Lindqvist Jun 08 '14 at 12:02
  • Why would you call someone an archivist just because they live on Antarctica? And since when do rodents have archives? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 08 '14 at 12:14
  • Do rodents have archives? Archives have rodents as do the poles : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming. Am I calling someone an archivist because he is in Antarctica? Or because he tends to an archive? – Cris Jun 08 '14 at 13:19
  • It seems you got bogged down in this question. Let's try again. – Cris Jun 08 '14 at 13:37
  • @HåkanLindqvist Yes. – tchrist Jun 08 '14 at 16:09
  • Please elaborate how you feel this question is in any way unclear. As it stands, without a reason to back up your close, it seems more likely you simply "don't like" such questions -- maybe consider encoding your dislike feeling in the help centre rules to make it policy. Otherwise, well done, Community and thank you for trying! Better luck moderating in future. – Cris Jun 14 '14 at 23:25

2 Answers2

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They'd be called "an archivist".

I know a retired dairy farmer who at one point in his life used to use a Luger "liberated" from a German soldier to shoot rodents and told me wistfully how it was the best gun he ever had for such purposes. This makes him different from other dairy farmers in a way that sounds quite close to how your hypothetical archivist differs from other archivists (except he aimed to kill, rather than to scare, the rodents with his German-made semi-automatic pistol).

He was called a dairy farmer.

Meanwhile, in the television show "Warehouse 13" the archivists have to do more far-fetched things than your example. They are called archivists.

You might also call them "an adventurer", "eccentric" or "squeamish about killing rodents", but you'd still describe their job as being an archivist.

Jon Hanna
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Perhaps he could be called an armed, aggressive, Antarctic archivist.

GMB
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