What’s the difference between cavalry and calvary? The first of these two refers to the group of soldiers on horseback, and is a linguistic relative of such “horsey” words as caballero, the Spanish horse-riding gentleman, and cavalcade, originally a “parade of horses.” The word calvary, on the other hand, derives from the Latin calvaria, “skull,” and refers to the hill where Jesus was crucified, known in Aramaic as Golgotha, or “place of the skull.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Cavalry vs. Calvary”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you? My name’s Eric. I’m calling from Indianapolis.
Great.
And I’m having a little bit of a word crisis that I was hoping you guys could help me out with.
Oh no, a crisis.
We’ll send the word EMTs right over. What’s up?
I grew up in a very small town where it’s not unusual to hear things like warsh and y’all and, you know, all these kind of little backwater terms.
One of which I have heard consistently my whole life is, well, the word is cavalry, which I know we don’t really use in everyday language or everyday, you know, conversation.
Right.
But we use the phrase, here comes the cavalry, a lot for just little, you know, little things.
Right.
Except that’s not what I hear.
Around here, it’s cavalry.
Here comes the cavalry.
Oh, nice.
Oh, dear.
Yes, even when I was little, like I’m, you know, a seven-year-old kid going, oh, that’s not right.
That’s not correct.
I love that.
I said, oh, yeah, because I was excited about the linguistic thing that was happening.
And Martha’s like, oh, dear, because all she could hear was the solacism.
Well, great.
Well, but then, you know, I moved to a larger town for college.
Here comes the Calvary.
Then I moved to the biggest city in the entire state.
Where were you?
Here comes the Calvary, Indiana.
And it has driven me nuts my entire life.
So now I’m just calling for help.
Wait, Eric, before we go any further, I need to stick up for all of the American South and say that when you say that y’all is a backwater term, you’ve got some explaining to do.
No, hey, I say it.
I say y’all every day of my life.
I don’t know if that gets you off the hook.
Good.
All right.
So you are calling for the linguistic cavalry, right?
Yes, I believe so.
Yeah, yeah, the linguistic people mounted on horseback coming to the rescue, right?
And what you’re hearing is people saying here comes the Calvary.
-huh.
Yeah, and those of us who grew up in the church in particular always heard Calvary as a religious term, correct?
Sure, absolutely.
So you have to spell these because they sound amazingly alike.
Yeah, they do.
And L’s and R’s are so tricky in language anyway.
And that metathesis, right?
So C-A-L-V-A-R-Y with an L.
Calvary.
Is the mountain that Jesus was crucified on, right?
Yes.
And C-A-V-A-L-R-Y is the military horse brigade or whatever you call it.
Yes.
Soldiers on horses.
Yes.
Or soldiers on tanks.
Yes.
And I think it is really easy to confuse those just when you’re talking really quickly.
But the way that I remember the difference is that cavalry has to do with all these horse-related words.
It goes back to caballarius in Latin.
A caballero in Spanish.
Caballero in Spanish is a gentleman who rides the caballo, correct.
And cavalry is also related to the English word cavalcade, which, you know, is originally a parade of horses.
The Calvary was the hill on which Jesus was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem.
That’s related to the Latin word calvarium, which means skull.
And that’s a Latinized version of the term for that hill in Aramaic, which came into English as Golgotha or Golgotha, either way, because the hill on which Jesus was crucified is in the shape of a skull.
Wow.
Yeah.
And church lady bringing it.
But wait, there’s more.
There’s more.
And here’s what’s so cool about that.
That comes from the Latin word for skull, calvarium.
Yeah.
That finds its way, the same root finds its way into the English name Calvin, which means literally bald-headed.
And the Spanish word calvo, which means bald.
How about that?
Yeah, all sorts of stuff I didn’t know.
How about that?
That’s how I remember the difference between cavalry and calvary.
Of course you do.
Although it’s really hard when, you know, to mix them up.
Or in the short version, the LV version is Jesus’ place of death.
The VAL version is the horses.
Right.
Right.
So if I hear somebody say, here comes the calvary, I’m totally allowed to correct them now.
Like, for real.
Oh, well, now that’s a different question, isn’t it?
Who are you talking with?
But you could say, hey, this is really cool.
Did you know Calvary comes from the Latin for skull?
Or you can just, you know, have a warm glow inside remembering this conversation that you had with Martha and Grant about the marvels of etymology and the way words are connected.
Thank you very, very much.
Yeah, sure, Eric.
You’re more than welcome.
Bye, Eric.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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