Former church

Question

(1) This Exclusive 5000 Sq Ft Home is A FORMER CHURCH.

(2) Erdogan converts the former church into a mosque.

(1) means a church is converted into a 5000 Sq Ft Home.

(2) means a church into a mosque, but could we say "the mosque is the former church"?

I want to know whether the meanings of "former" in (1) and (2) are different?

In (1), "former" provides the church exists now, but is used as the mosque .

In (2), "former" provides the church existed before, but now does not exist.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I think you got your numbers mixed up, there.

A former church still stands. If it had been demolished, you would have to say "formerly the site of a church" or something like that. Beside, "convert" means that the basic thing is changed and not destroyed.

Wei-Tsung Li(1) This Exclusive 5000 Sq Ft Home is A FORMER CHURCH.

That is real-estate language, similar to headline style. "Home" for "house" gives it away. It means that the building that is now a residence used to be used as a church. It is clear enough, but it staggers with style errors. To say it is a former church creates a bit of a temporal clash.

Wei-Tsung Li(2) Erdogan converts the former church into a mosque.

Aagin there is a temporal clash. He did not convert a former church. It was still a church when he set about converting it, unless they had stopped using it as a church and used it for something else before he got to it, in which case you have to be clearer than that.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Wei-Tsung Libut could we say "the mosque is the former church"?

The mosque is a former church.

The most famous example is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It has changed its use several times over the centuries.

Built in the year 537, it was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) and the Eastern Orthodox Church, except during the Latin Empire from 1204 to 1261, when it became the city's Roman Catholic cathedral. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935 the secular Turkish Republic established it as a museum. In 2020, it re-opened as a mosque.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia

The building has remained the same, except for interior decorations.

Wei-Tsung LiI want to know whether the meanings of "former" in (1) and (2) are different?

No, the meaning is the same.

Wei-Tsung LiIn (2), "former" provides the church existed before, but now does not exist.

The building exists and is the same but its purpose has changed. It used to be used as a holy place of worship for Christians, then Muslims, then a secular museum, and now it is for Muslims again.

CalifJim · Answer

I recommend getting rid of 'former'. We may as well all call ourselves former babies. The construction is grotesque. (Not that I have any strong opinions about it.)

This exclusive 5000-square-foot home was formerly a church.
Erdogan converts the museum, formerly a church, into a mosque.

CJ

Former church

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