Gentleman

At the roots of kindness there is no etiquette, but an ancient root extremely fertile in words.
From the Latin gens is forma gentilis, which indicates being part of a group of people united by birth and good social standing.
Next step: the words gentiluomo and gentilhomme appear in old Italian and French; immediately the latter expands across the Channel and enters the ancient English of the thirteenth century.
Those medieval gentlemen might as well be abject, thieves, rude or mean.
No problem: what mattered to the meaning of our word was that he boasted a family crest and landed property.

Three centuries later we already find the use of the adverb gentlemanly: "in the manner of gentlemen".
The transformation has taken place, the meaning we know today has been added: just as happened to chivalrous and courteous.
Put this way, the gentleman can be anyone, even someone who has no landed property or coat of arms.
With the new meaning it will cross the Channel again, replacing the space left by the old French word which centuries earlier had landed in Great Britain, and later returning to Italy as well.
It is comforting to know that gentlemen are not born but made.

Fabio Arduini
NP October 2021