The Ancient Greeks knew how to celebrate a win. At the place where the battle turned they would build a monument to celebrate their victory. This monument would normally be made up of the enemy’s cast off weapons. The monument itself was called a trope which in Greek means “a turning.” As time passed the name became used for anything brought back after a victory. So that runner-up trophy you got in little league, you can thank the Ancient Greeks for that!
No, not the game show. The danger of loss, harm or failure.
The game was in jeopardy right until the end.
Our love’s in jeopardy (baby ooo…ooo).
The term comes from medieval France when archery competitions were tied going into the final round and the final two competitors were tied. (Look they didn’t have TV back then.)
The ever excited umpire (see here) would cry out “Jeu parti!” (the game is divided!). This morphed into the modern meaning due to the fact that both parties were in danger of losing.
General George Patton was a lot of things. He was a warrior and a poet in the classical sense. He thought that he had lived many lives before and sometimes did not understand things such as weakness or fear. He was a man who had a purpose and it just so happened that the times he lived in were ripe for that purpose.
The quote of his above is from a speech that he gave at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, on June 7, 1945. It is ingrained in the wall of the Illinois WWII Memorial and at first glance it causes one to take pause and much like Patton himself you need to look at it fully to appreciate the merit of what he is saying.
He had used similar words before in 1943 while dedicating an Allied cemetery in Italy, “I consider it no sacrifice to die for my country. In my mind we came here to thank God that men like these have lived rather than to regret that they have died.” This quote, which came first, sheds light on the second and provides it with a little context.
Patton was a warrior in the classical sense. His job was war and he was good at it. To his detriment he did not always grasp some of the finer details of the job, some of the more human aspects. The slapping incidents are one example. (If you need background on that click here.) He expected every man under him to fight, that was their job, and when he found these men that were unable to mentally continue the fight he lashed out. it is not that he was a callous man, he was just a man who saw a job that needed done and stood for no obstacles in that path. His superiors recognized that in him and while such actions from almost any other general would have seen them dismissed, they need what Patton brought to the table.
Now back to the quote. it would be easy to read the first part and think that those were the words of a callous Patton, one who did not fully grasp the human cost of war. Perhaps he did not even see the men that he commanded but only pieces on a chess board. That is not the fact however. He did see the men and knew the cost, in his role though he had to be able to put it into context. No better quote by the man shows how he was able to do that. By thanking God that these men lived he is showing that their sacrifice, though great, was what was necessary to defeat their enemy. He elevates them in a way from men to legends, and such a thing from this man can not be taken lightly.
Yes, light on history but heavy on commentary. Just that kind of day…
I apologize for the double post. A WordPress Theme Update ate the last one causing quite the flap. See what I did, worked today’s word right into it. The good news is if you managed to read the first version, this one is slightly different.
So when we use flap today we mean any kind of fuss or excitement. That caused quite a flap! Weave the British Navy to thank for that one.
At the turn of the century (20th) when reliable radio communications were still a ways off ships used a series of flags to send messages to one another. The system f flags is caused semaphore code and is actually still used today.
On Royal Naval vessels during times of great excitement or problems or general hub bub flags would be run up the pole to let other ships know what was going on. The bigger the trouble the more flags. The more flags the louder the flap noise. As such any kind of commotion was termed a flap. Eventually the term left the navy and found its way into the everyday lexicon.
A sabot is a wooden shoe like the one seen above. These shoes were popular among the lower classes of the 19th century and often seen on the feet of the factory workers. One group of people that wore shoes like this were Luddites, a religious group that spurned any advancement in technology. They took it upon themselves to try and stall the industrialization of civilization by under taking planned acts of destruction.
Their targets were the fancy new stocking and weaving machines in textile mills of England. They would take their wooden shoes and toss them into the machines breaking them and causing general chaos. And eventually the term became used to mean any kind of purposeful destruction.