Episode 3 – Call In The Cavalry

Welcome to Thinking Backwords.
I'm your host, Clark H Smith.
We're diving into the distant ancestors of modern words.

Today's words are Cavalry, Chivalry, and Cavalier. Although they don't clearly sound like it, they all arise from the ancient root – ekwo – as in equine – relating to horses and those that ride them. As language does, the KW sound in –ekwo– morphed slightly into the CV sound in our key words, Cavalry, Chivalry.

Let's play with some pretty little words first. In fact, Let’s start with “pretty”. Now trust me, "pretty" originally "manly, gallant". Then, the way words do, "pretty" slowly morphed to "ingeniously or cleverly made". So we might say, "that Rolex watch is very pretty."

After that, in language evolutionary time, "pretty" morphed into "beautiful in a slight way". As in, "Isn't that a pretty pansy flower."
Flashing back to Camelot era, you hear someone say, “Oh, here comes Lancelot, Sir Lancelot, isn’t he pretty man?" In those times, that would be a great compliment. These days, we'd never call a chivalrous knight, "pretty".

Recently, my wife and I watched a 1950s sci-fi movie.  It was performed in English,  but it had Portuguese subtitles. A meeting of gentlemen gathered to discuss how to fight the space aliens.
When the word “gentleman” was spoken, the Portugese word “cavalheiro” appeared in the subtitles. But alas, the gentlemen did not coming riding to the meeting on horses. Even today in Portugese, the word for gentleman harkens back to the word family that includes chivalry, cavalry, and cavalier.

Let's add some definitions to these words.
Cavalry: "soldiers who travel and fight on horseback"
Chivalry: means "having the high social and moral code of medieval feudalism". Chivalry is synonymous with gallantry, courage, and courtly manners, putting us in mind again of the behavior of true gentlemen.

But, here's where the word family falls over backwords. Cavalier: now means "disdainful". In modern usage we would say "LeBron had a pretty cavalier attitude about missing two free throws. They would have won the game."

Earlier, cavalier had a sense of "easy, offhand". The pastor had a cavalier way of speaking, he made his point, but was pretty casual about it.

Thinking further backwords, cavalier originally described the lifestyle of a knight. "Sir Gawain was as cavalier in the jousting match as he was courting the ladies."

Cavalier certainly means something different now than it did originally. So how did these pretty, gallant boys on their fine horses wind up meaning disdainful or having “no concern for a serious matter”?

Imagine if you will… If you’re a by-gosh horse-handling, lance-wielding, lady-wooing, pretty, gallant knight. You might sashay your way into town of a Saturday night with a bit of swagger. You have an easy, off-hand, devil-may-care demeanor about you. Why? Because you’re a knight of the realm! And you're not intimidated by anyone or anything. If you cause a ruckus in a bar, no one is going to call you out.

But that dang attitude gets annoying after a while. The local cobbler shows up at the tavern and commences getting hydrated. He starts behaving with the knight's who-gives-a-dang attitude, He’s even called "cavalier" – mockingly. The adjective sticks and the next overly casual fellow and then the next overly casual fellow all get tagged "cavalier". And in a whorl of linguistic chaos, the word that originally defined a strong, courageous, gallant warrior now means ambivalent, indifferent… and annoying. One knight's casual attitude is a cobbler's irritating behavior.

Bonus word: Gallant

We're going back to King Arthur's court for this one. Just as in the modern military, there are uniforms meant for combat and there are dress uniforms designed almost strictly for appearance significant events. Let's imagine the king summons his one-percenters to a grand gala celebrating his realm's latest conquest. The knights are perfectly gallant. They dress in their prettiest attire, their hardware brightly shining, and they are "politely attentive to women". That's what gallant encompasses.

But just like "cavalier", gallant took on a less noble meaning in the form of "gallivant". A poem from about 1800 defines gallivant for us perfectly.

Young Lobski said to his ugly wife,

"I'm off till to-morrow to fish, my life;"

Says Mrs. Lobski, "I'm sure you a'nt",

But you brute you are going to gallivant."

What Mrs. Lobski said was right,

Gay Mr. Lobski was out all night.

He ne'er went to fish, 'tis known very well

But where he went I shall not tell.

Gallivanting, not very chivalrous, is it?

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