Knight, K’night, or K’nigit?
A quick look at the English language, as well as Chivalry (kind of)
Why is the English language a mess?
We won’t take long on this, but why does knight have a k? Because in Middle English (think Geoffrey Chaucer) it was pronounced and so was the silent gh. If you were to say knight in those days you would pronounce it similarly to k’nigit. I just wanted to mention that as an introduction to some random thoughts about knights. Now on to the rest of the writing.
Giants or Windmills?
One of my favorite stories of knighthood is the tale of Don Quixote. This story follows the misadventures of a noble man who gets into his head that he is a knight. He goes out looking for quests and ways to prove his chivalry. There was even a time when he was going to joust with a pair of giants, but they disappeared and were replaced with windmills. That is where we get the phrase, “tilting at windmills.”
A strange game of chess
Most people know about Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. A large portion of those people does not know about Through the Looking Glass until the Tim Burton movie. The second book is a look at the chessboard world that Alice discovers when she passes through a…
