By Betty Kirkpatrick
There is often a lot of inter-party hostility and enmity on the political campaign trail, and such feelings are in keeping with the history of the word.
Campaign has close associations with the Italian word campagna, which originally meant open countryside, being derived from the Latin word campagnia, open country, a derivative of Latin campus, a field, and source of English camp.
However, campagna acquired a specifically military meaning. Armies preferred to stay in their camps in winter weather, perhaps plotting strategies, only emerging into the campagna or open countryside to do battle when the weather was more clement.
As a result, campagna came to mean military operations. This sense was borrowed into French as a meaning of campagne and then made its way into English.
I am not sure how much champagne is drunk on the campaign trial. Probably this is reserved for the final victory, but perhaps the odd sip is taken when the polls are exceptionally favourable. In any event, the words champagne and campaign are closely related linguistically.
The sparkling wine known as champagne is named after Champagne, the area of eastern France where it is made. The French word champagne, again meaning open country like the Italian campagna, is also derived from Latin campagnia and campus, a field.
The wine meaning came into English in the 17th century, but the French word champagne originally entered English in the 14nth century, as champaign, now archaic, meaning open countryside.
But back to campaign. We have the Americans to thank for extending the meaning of campaign to include political battles as well as military ones. This extension dates from the beginning of the 19th century.
Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.
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