Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Chandos Michael Brown wrote: > > One hesitates to take issue with the distinguished historian, but I've never seen "yeomanry" (which has a technical meaning) used to describe what most > American historians would characterize as the "middle class"--or, in the language of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, "the middling sort." > > > Likewise "gentry," which passed into American English as a term of opprobrium (often used ironically to describe the affectations of the would-be > > > > > 'aristocracy') by the third decade of the 19th century (with the notable exception of the lower South). In any event, in nearly every application, > > English or American, "gentry" applies to landowners, not merchants (distinguished by the end of the 18th c.--as in Adam Smith) as the "mercantile > > classes." > ><Snip> Main Entry: yeoˇmanˇry Pronunciation: 'yO-m&n-rE Function: noun Date: 14th century 1 : the body of yeomen; specifically : the body of small landed proprietors of the middle class 2 : a British volunteer cavalry force created from yeomen in 1761 as a home defense force and reorganized in 1907 as part of the territorial force Mark Rabiner