Re: medieval english was knight ranks and titles

Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:17:21 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> <news:434E96A0.2833@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:
>
> > Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> >>>> "Mike" <bakerdivert@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >>>> news:11ks0ju3gubei28@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> >>>>> Some OED quotes using the word sergeant might help.
>
> >>>>> "<c1330 Chron Wace (Rolls)> Seuen thousand now we are
> >>>>> Of knyghtes to bataille zare, Wythoute seriauntz &
> >>>>> other pytaille[foot soldiers].
>
> >> Not <zare>, but <3are>, where <3> stands for the letter
> >> yogh; here it has the sound of <y>, and indeed the spelling
> >> <yare> goes back to the 13th century. The word means
> >> 'ready, prepared. This quotation is for the meaning 'a
> >> common soldier'; the sense is 'We are now seven thousand
> >> knights ready for battle, not counting common soldiers and
> >> other infantry'.
>
> > Is that the word that survives (barely) in *Philadelphia Story* and
> > crossword puzzles?
>
> I don't know *Philadelphia Story*, but it wouldn't surprise

It's one of the all-time great romantic comedies! The *Moonstruck* of
its generation! Katharine Hepburn, aka Tracy Lord, describes her
sailboat, or sloop, or ketch, to country bumpkin newspaper reporter
Jimmy Stewart as "yar," and later on she gets described the same way.
(Cary Grant loses out.) For years I tried to get the original Philip
Barry play out of the library, but it was never available. (Of course
that might simply mean all the copies were stolen.)

> me to find it in crossword puzzles. It's in AHD3; the
> meaning that I gave above is labelled 'Archaic', but the
> meaning 'lively, active' carries no special marking.

It's used in the film in a sense of 'super-shipshape'.

Have you ever encountered it?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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