Main > The Armoury
Some notes on terminology
Sir Douglas:
--- Quote from: Ian on 2013-11-19, 20:17:24 ---It's still strange to me that we agree that the terminology during the middle ages was imprecise at best, but we continue to try and make it super precise now. It's an exercise in futility. Spaulder or spaudler, it doesn't really matter as long as everyone in the conversation knows what piece of armor we're talking about :)
--- End quote ---
Indeed. Something about 21st century man that has to put everything into nice, neat little categories. The fluidity and constant evolution of the English language makes that very difficult. You have so many examples of variations on spelling of essentially the same word, and they may or may not take on different meanings depending on the context. Like surcoat/surcote/surcotte. Or the differences in pronunciation between coif (kwaaf - referring to hair) and coif (koyf - referring to headgear). Or maille/mail...even "chainmail". It might not technically be correct, but we all know what someone's talking about when they say chainmail. It's become part of the lexicon. Yes it's good to educate people when you can, but there's no point in trying to reverse it completely.
And that is why I refer to English as the ugly man-child of all other European languages. ;)
Sir James A:
--- Quote from: Ian on 2013-11-19, 20:17:24 ---
--- Quote from: DouglasTheYounger on 2013-11-19, 20:13:13 ---Heh, I looked in both the Edge/Paddock book and the Oakeshott book that were mentioned and sure enough, staring me right there in the face: "spaudlers". I never noticed that before.
--- End quote ---
You just did the work for me! Haha, I was about to check the same books and verify :)
--- Quote from: DouglasTheYounger on 2013-11-19, 20:13:13 ---The link between that particular spelling and the original French espaulier still seems fuzzy to me, though. I don't understand how espaulier indicates that the D should come before the L any more than it indicates the L comes before the D. It seems they could have spelled it whichever way they wanted when they Anglicized it. Unless I'm missing something in the original French pronunciation, which is entirely possible since my French is not that great. :P
Armor terminology is a strange beast. Depending who you ask, you could get ten different terms for the same piece of armor.
--- End quote ---
Agreed, there was no real progression in his reasoning as to how espaullier should dictate where the 'd' goes in the anglicized term. It's still strange to me that we agree that the terminology during the middle ages was imprecise at best, but we continue to try and make it super precise now. It's an exercise in futility. Spaulder or spaudler, it doesn't really matter as long as everyone in the conversation knows what piece of armor we're talking about :)
--- End quote ---
Actually espaulier is a term (maybe only in modern day context) for a small spaudler (ha, I spelled it "right"!). It is essentially espaulier > spaudler > pauldron in terms of size and coverage. I think espaulier comes from epalette (sp?) - or vice versa - which is the decorative "shoulder pad" piece on 17th/18th century military uniforms for soldiers of rank. Espaulier is the smallest form, and I see it with only two leather straps about half-width apart for articulation. Whereas a spaudler has a central leather strap, a front leather strap, and rear sliding rivet articulation. I'll take some pics of mine when I get home.
It was mentioned that spaudler is used in all the scholarly sources, but I'm not sure if that referred to modern day or medieval period sources. I might ask for clarification.
Ian:
I think you misunderstood. He's suggesting that the etymology of the word 'spaudler' comes from the term espaullier. He just makes an assertion with zero evidence. It could just as easily be the root of the word 'spaulder'. That's all Doug and I were saying. There's no logical train of thought in the reasoning presented. We're not talking about the progression of actual armor pieces, merely the words themselves.
But really, my overall point is that trying to decipher the word spaulder vs spaudler is in and of itself a wholly absurd endeavor because we know the original terms are even more imprecise.
Sir Edward:
--- Quote from: DouglasTheYounger on 2013-11-19, 22:08:53 ---Indeed. Something about 21st century man that has to put everything into nice, neat little categories. The fluidity and constant evolution of the English language makes that very difficult. You have so many examples of variations on spelling of essentially the same word, and they may or may not take on different meanings depending on the context. Like surcoat/surcote/surcotte. Or the differences in pronunciation between coif (kwaaf - referring to hair) and coif (koyf - referring to headgear). Or maille/mail...even "chainmail". It might not technically be correct, but we all know what someone's talking about when they say chainmail. It's become part of the lexicon. Yes it's good to educate people when you can, but there's no point in trying to reverse it completely.
And that is why I refer to English as the ugly man-child of all other European languages. ;)
--- End quote ---
Absolutely. :) What's worse is when the same word is spelled multiple ways in the same manuscript. There are many cases of this. Of course, it was at a time when English word spellings were more phonetic. Modern English has deviated far more from Middle English in pronunciation than spelling. A lot of the spellings we're used to (particularly silent letters) are hold-overs from prior pronunciations.
A great example is the word "knight", which in Middle English was pronounced more like "k'neecht" (with the 'ch' sounding like the ch in German ich).
Check out this pronunciation guide: http://webpages.marshall.edu/~will2/chaucer.html
Sir Wolf:
now turtles... is it tur-tles or tu-ur-tle-s?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version