...you would think someone claiming to be an expert in firearms, among other things, would know the difference betwixt the two. Then again, you would be wrong if you though so about the expert I just saw on the show Pawn Stars. While examining a Civil War era carbine, unless my ears are a lot worse than I thought, he repeatedly said it was used by the "Calvary". I would have sworn, that at Calvary (in its most notable historical sense) the weapons of the day were swords, spears and the nails used during the Crucifixion of Christ.
Even the folks who contribute to Wikipedia know the difference. If you search for Calvary on Wikipedia you get to the page at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary.
If you look, you will see, the very first sentence, before they even begin to talk about Calvary, is this:
"Not to be confused with cavalry (horse or armoured troops)."
If you want to read about horse mounted soldiers, or Cavalry, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry
I would not normally dedicate a blog rant to such a thing but being I was blogging about Wild Bill Hickok and other shootists of his time, while I heard the expert say this, it just got to me. It got deep down inside since when I was a kid, who was adoring of the heroes in the previous post, I was often admonished for getting these two words confused and sometimes admonished hard. That was either when I talked about the Cavalry in the Old West or when we went to visit Calvary Cemetery and I just got em mixed up over and over again until I was well into my teens. So, hearing this so called expert get it wrong just ate away at the pit of my gut like a nasty cemetery worm and I just had to spit it out and let the steeds trample it.
All the best,
Glenn B
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