Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 2 18:46:19 UTC 2007


Jon Lighter posted;

ex., from 1814 :

 http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/facsimiles/1810s/181407060006.html

 "_A_....The other man, I saw the blow coming, I stooped my head, and
in stooping
I fell. Ashton directly collared me; he called me a b - y sod, and
said he would take me to the _guard-house_.
 "_Q._ He called you a sod; did you know what he meaned by that
expression - _A_. I know now; I did not at that time. He said he would
take me to the _guard-house_."

I've long wondered why it is that civilians often refer to the what we
(ex-)GI's know as the "stockade" as the "guard(-)house." Making a WAG
on the basis of Jon's evidence, I'd say that, once upon a time,
"guard(-)house" was simply another term for "jail / gaol." In the
current military - rather, when I  was in the military a half-century
ago - the guard house was the building or, sometimes, just a room, in
which the privates of the guard were confined, for the convenience of
the sergeant of the guard, when they were not actively engaged in
guarding: "walking their posts from flank to flank and deferring to
anyone above their rank." The equivalent of a civilian jail or prison
is / was? the stockade.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
                                         -Free-Wheeling Franklin

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