antedating "calvary"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 5 23:51:32 UTC 2013


And there are a bunch of exx. of "calvaryman" too.

JL

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Years ago I brought up the endemic Southern U.S. habit of saying "calvary"
> for "cavalry."  The earliest printed ex. I had encountered was from 1918-19.
>
> Here are some big antedatings:
>
> 1836 _Metropolitan Magazine_ (July) 273: Don Julien had commanded a
> calvary regiment.
>
> 1857 _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_  (Nov.) 605: One native irregular
> calvary regiment.
>
> 1881  _Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York_
> (Albany: Weed, Parsons) 399: This is particularly the case with the
> Thirteenth Regiment of Infantry and *Calvary Troop* D.
>
> GB reveals a surprising number of exx. from just the past few years - from
> publishers like Cornell U. P.
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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