Cavalry/Calvary

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:41 AM -0700 8/24/05, Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>As far as I remember, all the citations of this cavalry/Calvary confusion
>seem to involve use of the latter where the former is meant.

That's my sense too, and I suspect (without knowing enough
phonetics/phonology to support the suspicion) that "calvary" is
easier to say (at least for English speakers) in some relevant sense
than "cavalry".  That being said (as hesitantly as I could manage to
say it), I'm not sure there are such metatheses when no prior word of
the other form exists (e.g. with "calvacade"  for "cavalcade"),
although arguably the phonology between these pairs is different
enough to matter.

Some empirical data:  9930 googlits for "calvacade"...
but also 113 for "Cavaldos" (which sounds like it should refer to
apple brandy one sips on horseback)

L

>   The only
>instance I'm personally acquainted with went in the opposite direction: a
>church in Chattanooga, TN, called "Cavalry Baptist Church."  I always
>thought it was PROBABLY intended to be "Calvary," seeing as how it was a
>church and all, but given the number of Civil War monuments in and around
>Chattanooga, I was never 100% sure whether it might not indeed have been
>named after some cavalry unit or other that had fought near its location.
>
>Peter Mc.
>
>--On Wednesday, August 24, 2005 4:44 AM -0700 Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>>Just heard the guest co-anchor on "Fox & Friends" refer to the "1st
>>Calvary Division from Ft. Hood, Texas."

There goes Fox again, gratuitously injecting religion where it doesn't belong.

>>   A minute later he clearly said
>>"First Cavalry."
>>
>>JL
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>***************************************************************************
>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ****************************