Alex from Columbia, Missouri, wonders about rank and file, meaning “the members of the body of an organization as opposed to its leaders.” In 12th-century France, the words renc or ranc referred to a row of soldiers. The word file means a “line” or “thread” and is related to the English word filament. The term rank and file coexisted in both chess and the military for hundreds of years. We didn’t mention it on the show, but rank and file are also used for the columns and rows of sudoku puzzles. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Rank and File”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Alex. I’m calling from Columbia, Missouri.
Hey, Alex, welcome.
I had a question about, I guess it relates to the game of chess, military, and a little bit about bureaucracy.
A few months ago when the Queen’s Gambit dropped, everyone started to get into the game of chess in my life, including me.
We all started playing. Some got really good and I stayed bad.
When I was starting to learn about chess, there’s portions of the chess board called the rank and the file.
And I was really curious because I’ve also heard this term be used in reference to members of Congress or staffers or just in bureaucracy in general.
So a few weeks ago, I was just trying to do some preliminary research and see where did this originate from.
I figured it came from the military, and that’s what I found.
Based on my research, I found that it related to the space, the position that members would stand in in the military.
But then I realized, well, how did it turn from being used in chess and in military to describe the spatial location of a person to the bureaucratic role that one fills?
And so I was really curious to hear where that cultural transition happens and figured you all might be able to shed some light on that.
I want to give you a different idea, Alex, is that rank and file doesn’t come from one or the other.
It exists, it coexists in chess and the military at the same time all the way back, basically back to the 12th century in French, which is where English got both words.
So rank in French is R-A-N-G, which means a line of soldiers or the horizontal rolls on a chess board.
And then file comes from a word in French meaning a series, a line, a queue, a thread.
And it’s related to our English word filament or the military word enfilade.
And so both of these words exist side by side for a century, both in chess and military.
And this goes back to chess as this longstanding metaphor for the battles of war.
Chess has long been seen, as far as the history of chess has been recorded, as this game that represents the kind of wit that you need to be a general organizing, reying, and then sending out your troops on the battlefield.
So it’s not surprising that the term rank and file should be in both places all the way back.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
It makes so much sense that I’m, like, hitting my forehead having not came to that conclusion of my own.
All right.
Take care of yourself and be well, all right?
Have a great one, y’all.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
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