This is clearly all about show, now, but, once upon a time, colors-and their ensigns-had an important role in warfare. An “ensign” is a flag (a “color”, if infantry, “standard”, if cavalry) and an “ensign” is also the person who carried it.īy 1916, when Tolkien became a 2 nd Lieutenant, colors were no longer carried in battle, but only on parade, as this early-20 th-century illustration demonstrates-Īnd is still the case for the famous “Trooping of the Colour” for the Queen of England’s birthday parade, where her splendid footguards march with one of their colo(u)rs. Instead of a compound with its implication of replacement, “ensign” is actually a job description. “Lieutenant” is just the English version of a French compound for “place-holder” ( lieu + tenant), in this case meaning the person who will step into the captain’s shoes if necessary. In an earlier posting, in fact, we mentioned that that rank of 2 nd Lieutenant was a replacement for the earlier rank of “ensign”. On the subject of banners, recently, we’ve been writing about 2 nd Lieutenant JRR Tolkien. We didn’t see why someone’s good looks could be frightening, but we could certainly see how an army with its flags could be scary. Growing up, we always wondered about that word “terrible”. Our title comes from the Hebrew Bible, in the book entitled The Song of Solomon, Chapter 6, verses 4 and 10, where the speaker’s beloved’s beauty is likened to an army with banners.
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