The etymology of lemma takes us to the Latin lemma , in turn derived from the Greek word lêmma . The concept refers to the title or phrase that summarizes the spirit or idea of a work, an event, an organization, etc.
A motto, therefore, is an expression that reflects an ideal or an intention . Many times it functions as a guide to conduct, synthesizing values or principles.
Countries and cities usually have a motto. Brazil , for example, has the motto “Ordem e progresso” (that is, “Order and progress” ). The phrase is even part of the national flag and is linked to the goal of achieving internal stability and economic growth.
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité” (“Liberty, equality, fraternity”), en tanto, es el lema oficial de France. En este caso las palabras resumen los ideales de la french revolution que, a fines del 18th century, acabó con el Old Regime.
In the field of linguistics , the term that heads an article in an encyclopedia or dictionary is called a lemma. For mathematics , a lemma is a proposition that must be proven prior to proving a theorem. The lemmas, in this framework, function as auxiliary premises of the theorems.
In some electoral systems, on the other hand, there is the so-called motto law . Each slogan is a political party or an alliance of several parties; In turn, mottos can have multiple sublemmas (which would be different divisions or currents within the general motto, represented by different candidates). The voters vote for the candidate (sublema) they want, but when it comes to counting the votes, everyone adds to the motto. The results can be calculated with various formulas, the simplest being the uninominal one : the lemma with the most votes is the winner (adding all the sublemmas), and then inside the lemma the sublemma with the most votes is imposed.
There is in English the term tagline , which is a synonym for slogan and therefore is defined as a short and easy to distinguish formula that advertisers use to promote commercial products and that is also used in the field of political campaign to express the ideas of a party. In many media in our language it is common to find taglines with the meaning of motto , especially in publications of advertising and marketing interest; However, the Spanish word is preferred to the Anglo-Saxon one.
This problem, so to speak, is an increasingly frequent reality in our language: people prefer to misuse a term of English origin to the equivalent (or equivalents) in Spanish, perhaps because they consider that this gives them a more "original" character. or that talks about their broad culture , when in reality they do nothing other than destroy their own language and communicate imprecisely.
One of the most curious characteristics of this trend is the practically arbitrary assignment of a gender for each of these foreign words, since, at least in the case of English, they do not have one. In this particular one, we speak of " a tagline", probably because it refers to " a motto", although in English there is no difference between "a" and "an".
As the Urgent Spanish Foundation (Fundeu) points out, one of the meanings that the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy gives us for the term motto corresponds to a large extent with that of slogan , since it defines it as "a phrase that represents the ideal of conduct of a person" or "a phrase that is placed on an emblem or shield." For this reason, we should not hesitate to use this word before tagline .