{"id":2044,"date":"2023-11-14T13:27:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T18:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2044"},"modified":"2023-11-14T13:32:37","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T18:32:37","slug":"word-of-the-week-cavalcade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/11\/14\/word-of-the-week-cavalcade\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Cavalcade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"armored<\/a>Many thanks to Writing Consultant Cady Cummins for this nomination. I realize that while it’s a word I rarely used, it also appeared a great deal in reading, until a few years ago. Readers of older criticism and fiction will still encounter it, but has “cavalcade” stopped being a cavalcade?<\/p>\n

The OED<\/a> shows us why usage has dwindled to about\u00a0 .3 occurrences in a million words. Our word once implied a formal procession on horseback, with the same root as the word “cavalry.” How many such cavalcades have you seen, recently? We might as well say “parade,” but that assembly does not carry the formal heft or equestrian spectacle of our word, even though a casual image search online shows parades as results for “cavalcade.”<\/p>\n

Within a century of the first usage recorded by the OED, the word also came to signify any procession. I recall a publication called A Literary Cavalcade<\/em>. Sure enough, Robert Parker’s six volumes of short literary essays can still be found at Amazon.<\/p>\n

A blog continues Parker’s work. Read about it here<\/a>, then read more entries not collected in the six-volume set.<\/p>\n

Parker’s use to me remains an outlier for a vanishing word, indeed, a vanishing (and in one regard, better) world. With so few of my students now reading for pleasure, I fear I’m at the end of a particular cavalcade now trotting off and leaving those behind in a curious, aliterate twilight.<\/p>\n

Grim thoughts indeed. So get back on the horse that threw you, non-readers.<\/p>\n

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image: Cavalcade courtesy of Wikipedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Writing Consultant Cady Cummins for this nomination. I realize that while it’s a word I rarely used, it also appeared a great deal in reading, until a few years ago. Readers of older criticism and fiction will still encounter it, but has “cavalcade” stopped being a cavalcade? The OED shows us why … Continue reading Word of the Week! Cavalcade<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-2044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-wY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2044"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2052,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044\/revisions\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}