People who work in academic linguistics are very aware that non-linguists are inclined to come up with fanciful, supposedly “common sense” explanations for linguistic phenomena which have no real basis in fact. This often seems to happen with putative acronyms.
For example, the word posh has been interpreted as an acronym applying to wealthy British passengers who reserved “port out, starboard home” cabins on ocean liners sailing to India in order to benefit from the sea breeze and shade. But this etymology is quite wrong.
Posh first appeared in British military slang around 1914 to refer to stylish or superior clothing. The exact origin of the word is uncertain, but it is almost certainly borrowed from the Gypsy language Anglo-Romani, probably a shortened form of poshora or poshaera denoting a halfpenny, with the meaning developing to moneyed and hence upper-class or stylish.
I must admit that my first reaction when coming across any new etymology is very often to disbelieve it and to reach for an etymological dictionary. Rather recently, I read in a local parish magazine that the verb to canter, as of horses, is derived from Canterbury. I was sceptical and immediately checked my dictionary, but it turned out I was quite wrong to doubt it.
In fact, experts widely agree that canter actually does come from a shortened form of the phrase “at Canterbury pace”, which apparently dates back to the 1600s. Over time, the phrase was gradually shortened in everyday colloquial speech to the two-syllable word which is used today.
“At Canterbury pace” referred to the moderate, relaxed speed which was recommended for use by medieval pilgrims riding on horseback to the shrine of the Christian martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. (Becket was the archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II.) Canterbury lies about 60 miles overland from London, and the journey on horseback would probably have taken about four days “at a canter”.
The standard equestrian gait which is faster than a canter is the gallop, while trot and walk refer to slower gaits.
The word gallop “a leaping gait” comes from Old French galoper “to gallop”, itself a form of Old North French waloper, probably originally from Frankish *wala hlaupan “to run well”. But while the French word is Germanic in origin, Dutch galopperen, German galoppiren, Swedish galoppera were derived from French.
The etymology of trot “a specific gait of a horse (or other quadruped) faster than a walk and slower than a run” goes back to Old French troter “to trot, to go”, again from a Frankish word, *trotton. The Proto-Germanic base *trott– is also the source of Old High German trotton “to tread”.
Suggested Reading
What if Camelot was actually in Essex?
Canterbury
The Roman settlement of Durovernum Cantiacorum (the Greeks and Romans referred to the local tribes as the “Kanti”) was known in the ancient Brittonic or Old Welsh language in post-Roman Britain as Cair Ceint (“stronghold of Kent”). It later became known in Old English as Cantwareburh.
