WORDS STOLEN.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15120, 5 January 1922, Page 7

WORDS STOLEN.

MILITARY TERMS. The majority of our military words were originally French. Sword and rifle and gun are about the only three of them that are really English ill origin. The history of those which denote rank is curious. The word soldier comes from the Latin solidus, a small coin; the solidarius, or soldier, was a man who earned .a solidus a day. The corporal was the man in charge of a corps, originally a little body of men about the size of a modern platoon. What of the lance-corporal? This word lias a remarkable story. In old days, when a knight was unhorsed in battle, he had to report to the nearest mounted officer, and to fight by his side. Whilst so doing he was known as “lance to a colonel,” “lance to a captain,” and so on. Eventually the words “to a” dropped, out, and “lance” came to 'denote simply assistant. Nowadays it is used only for the noncommissioned ranks. CURE FOR “COLD FEET”! The sergeant was originally a “surveillant,’* or overseer. His business was to march behind the rear rank, and to prevent any who had “ cold feet” from bolting. For this reason he was armed, with a spear or axe. Even sergeants occasionally showed a desire to take a short cut for home in battle, and it was found necessary to have a superior surveillant, or sergeant-major, to march behind them and keep them from straying. The sergeant-major’s post became in course of time so important that in action he was virtually second-in-com-mand of the battalion. A new commissioned rank was therefore created in which the “sergeant” was dropped and the “major” retained. That is how the rank of major came into existence. . The captain derives his name from the "Latin word caput a head; he was the head man, or chief. I» old days this was the highest rank of all. Later an officer called the captain-general came into, existence, and after a short time the “first, part of his title was dropped, general alone being retained for officers of the highest rank Hie only remaining ranks is that of the colonel, the commander of a colonne, or column