Wordie: Cavalry: Comments

Comment by reesetee, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:19:30 +0000

I've had that happen too, cathari. Thanks to a friend of mine, to this day I have to think twice before mentioning NYC's Chrysler Building. She always called it the Chevrolet Building. :-)

Comment by cathari, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:56:51 +0000

seanmeade: You know, I never had trouble with the difference when I was little, until my dad had told me so many times about his own tendency to mix them up that I started mixing them up as well. Confusion can be horribly contagious like that.

Comment by reesetee, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:11:53 +0000

Not to worry. I added a reference at yacht. Besides, how can you be confused? This is Wordie, where discussions can pop up darn near anywhere! :-)

Comment by reesetee, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:08:02 +0000

No matter. I just like the phrase "unfamiliar guttural spirant." :-)

Comment by chained_bear, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:42:47 +0000

Wait! Why's this on the cavalry page and not the jaeger or yacht page?
*is confused*

Comment by chained_bear, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:41:21 +0000

Ooh, well... I like that about Dutch.

Actually, though Dutch and German are closely related (as languages go--I don't mean that they're the same language, of course), "jacht" is a Dutch spelling/origin, and "jaeger" (I can't make umlauts on this computer very easily) is German.

Hate to be a pooter parpy...

Comment by sionnach, 10 months ago

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:21:14 +0000

Unfamiliar guttural spirant, eh? But then, what can you expect from a language which considers the letter sequence ijk to be legitimate? Rijksmuseum - a word which, quite frankly, triggers nauseum.

Comment by reesetee, 10 months ago

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:59:12 +0000

Funny, sionnach--when I looked for the etymology of yacht, I found this in the OED Online: "Owing to the presence in the Dutch word of the unfamiliar guttural spirant denoted by g(h), the English spellings have been various and erratic; how far they represent varieties of pronunciation it is difficult to say." Then it lists these spellings: yeagh, yoath, yolke?, yaugh, yuaght, yought, y(e)aught, yaucht, jacht, yach, yacth, yat, yott, yatcht, yatch.

Which really makes your head hurt if you read it too quickly.

Comment by sionnach, 10 months ago

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:47:15 +0000

I think the jaegers would be on the jacht.

Comment by chained_bear, 10 months ago

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:37:07 +0000

Cavalry units captured at Yorktown and Gloucester included "Simcoe's and Tarleton's legions" and the "Hereditary Prince's regiment of horse."

Simcoe and Tarleton were stationed at Gloucester, I believe, which is directly across the York River from Yorktown.

(See also jaegers for a comment about the German-speaking troops with the British at Yorktown and Gloucester.)

Comment by seanmeade, about 1 year ago

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:22:36 +0000

must remember difference between cavalry and Calvary ;-)