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Literary Review
WORDSPEAK
Rank of major proportions
BY ANAND
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There’s more to major than just a military rank.
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In this month’s column on military ranks, major plays a major role in words that indicate something having a big effect, something that is important and something that is more important than anything else.
Before considering its usage as a noun to denote a military rank, let’s see how it works as an adjective, in which form it usually appears as a qualifier before a noun, and some other linguistic ramifications.
Major from Latin magnus (large, great) can be used for something having very serious or worrying results: “There is a major problem with parking in Chennai.” Another usage is for something very large or important, when compared to other things or people of a similar kind: “Smoking is one of the major causes of cancer.” In western music, a major key is based on a musical scale in which there are semitones between the third and fourth and the seventh and eighth notes: “A symphony in D major.”
Informal usage
Its informal or spoken usage, especially in American English, is: “I was majorly upset, as you can imagine.” As a noun, it can be the main subject that a student studies at college or university in the U.S.: “Sonia’s major is history.” (verb: “She’s majoring in history.”) The Major League is the most important league in any sport (especially baseball).
Before the term was applied to the rank of an officer in the army above captain and below lieutenant colonel, it had been used (since 1643) as a short form of sergeant-major (chief sergeant). When the size of armies grew and a higher rank was needed than that of a captain, the officer began to be called major, and when majors had to have a superior, came lieutenant-colonel who stayed in charge in ‘lieu’ of ‘tenant’ colonel.
It will be interesting to note that sergeant came through Old French from servant (one who serves), as well as the meaning of major in now old-fashioned majordomo (someone in charge of the servants in a large house).
It is equally fascinating how the original meaning of major in Latin is reflected in its usage to denote someone who is an elder or an adult, and who, in the legal sense, is above the age at which they become legally responsible for their actions.
Since legal terminology is required in the explanation, it would be prudent to quote rather than interpret that “the ‘age of majority’ is the threshold of adulthood as it is conceptualised in law. It is the chronological moment when children legally assume majority control over their persons and their actions and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of their parents over and for them.
Legal use
There are some things in life (such as death) over which no person has any control, so one assumes ‘majority control’ over one’s life at the age in question, instead of ‘full’ control (hence, age of majority instead of, e.g., ‘age of full control’). The period that precedes the age of majority is the period of minority, during which the child has minority control over his or her person and actions, while the parents hold majority control and have power to overrule most of the child’s decisions and desires, and can sometimes reverse the child’s actions.”
Speaking of law, force majeure meaning ‘greater force’ in French is a legal term for unexpected events over which one has no control. An event like this can legally allow an agreement or contract to be changed or ended.
The spelling of colonel was borrowed from Italian colonello meaning an officer who headed the first column (colonna) or company of a regiment, but the pronunciation (kur-nl) was borrowed from coronnel Middle French for the same military rank. As in the case of the campaign for lieutenant’s pronunciation being changed to a more logical loo-te’nunt, the attempt to have the spelling of colonel conform to the orthographic standard failed.
In some southern states of the U.S., colonel is often conferred as an honorary title. Colonel Sanders, the founder of the fast-food chain KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) also found in India, was an honorary Kentucky colonel. In Old South the plantation owners were given the title if they helped finance the raising of a company of soldiers, a colonial relic of an earlier English practice when a colonelcy could be purchased by a lord or prominent gentleman.
Both in Britain and in southern U.S., the actual command rested in the hands of a lieutenant colonel, who deputised for the figurehead colonel.
Since the English are rather fond of conventions, their monarch and the members of the royal family may be made colonels-in-chief or honorary colonels of military regiments in U.K. and in former dominions such as Australia and Canada.
E-mail: anand@journalist.com (Please put ‘Wordspeak’ in subject box)
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