By Andy Cooke
Common Bigshot Stanley, from Pirates of Penzance.
Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
When writing any organisation with ranks, there can be questions you need to ask yourself. One of them is: what the heck do I call the various ranks? Do I follow a military precedent? Do I make them up completely?
I had this to solve in my book Beyond the Sunset, where the “Explorer Corps” was to be set up, and they’d need an organisation with ranks in it. I could have grabbed ranks from various military setups, but those setting it up wanted to avoid being too obviously militaristic.
I ended up with Officer [basic rank], Patrol Leaders, Section Leaders, Group Leaders, and Commander. It did feel a bit like a cross between the Scouts, the RAF, the Army, and the Navy, but I think it was sufficiently different for me to get away with it.
But when you look at it, Army ranks (in the UK, at least), are very strangely named. When you look at the original meaning of the words, at least...
The lowest rank is Mercenary, believe it or not. "Private," is short for "Private Soldier," as distinct from one who serves the monarch. A private soldier was raised and paid by some lord privately, or a private company.
The next rank up is the Spear-Chief. Nicely evocative, and you can see how it comes about.
Above the Spear-Chief, we have the Chief. Because that's the source of the word that led to "corporal."
The Chief follows the command of a Servant, which is where we come shuddering to a confused stop. But "sergeant," is, I'm told, from "servant." A Servant gives orders to a Chief who has Spear-Chiefs and Mercenaries under them.
The markings of a Servant. I've still got mine somewhere.
Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Above a Servant is a Stick Servant, because this individual is the carrier of the stick of the person who is in charge (who is, of course, way above the lowly Chief).
Next up is a Big Servant. Which sort of makes more sense again, I guess. These can be split into whichever unit they're the Big Servant for, but that's getting deeper.
And now we have a switch to an entire category of people who are of the Appointment Holder class. Which starts to make the entire Servant thing make a bit more sense, but it still feels weird to me.
The lowest Appointment Holder is the Placeholder rank (which is split into Second Placeholder and a full on Placeholder). Because they take the place of the Appointment-holders above them when the latter aren't around, I guess.
And now we see the Placeholders and the various Servants and below (and trust me, in practice, a Big Servant, Stick Servant, and Servant will be listened to very closely by any Placeholders) taking orders from a Boss.
Like a Boss, this rank has a significant amount of independent action, but does come under a Big Shot. Said Big Shot has to fall under the Column-guy and his Placeholder Column-guy, but at this point, you've got a lot of soldiers – whether Mercenaries, Chiefs, Servants, or various Appointment-holders to command. This is a column of soldiers.
You can get multiple columns together, and at that point you've got a full on Gang, commanded by a Gang Bigshot or simply a Gang guy. I guess this gang roams around causing devastation, but only when it’s intended to, because at this point we head to a level of Appointment-holders called simply the Common People. (You may now pause to hum the Nineties song by Pulp).
The lowest rank of Common People is the Common Big Servant, known these days as the Common Bigshot instead. This rank is under the command of a Common Placeholder.
And the Common Placeholder is commanded by a Common Boss, which, when you think of it, does make sense. All the armies, gangs, and columns are commanded by a Common Boss – yes, I can see that. We drop the "Boss" bit and nowadays just call this rank "Common," which sort of puts them in their place.
And then, to have the highest rank of all, to whom the Common Bosses have to defer, we have the Farm Stableboy, and that's where all explanations just fall down, really.
And yes, I've been a bit creative with some of the "translations," but not really that much when you look at it.
Field Marshal: Farm Stableboy
[Captain-] General: Common [Boss]
Lieutenant-General: Common Placeholder
[Sergeant-] Major General: Common Bigshot/[Big Servant]
Brigadier [Brigade-major]: Gang guy [Gang Bigshot]
Colonel: Column guy
Lieutenant Colonel: Placeholder Column guy
Major: Bigshot
Captain: Boss
Lieutenant: Placeholder
Second Lieutenant: Second Placeholder
--
Sergeant Major: Big Servant
Staff Sergeant: Stick Servant
Sergeant: Servant
Corporal: Chief
Lance-corporal: Spear-chief
Private [soldier]: Mercenary
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Andy Cooke is a very prolific author. His books range from political punditry to ending the world. These include the series The End and Afterwards and The Fourth Lectern , which predicted the rise of UKIP on the British political scene. He has also written the portal fantasy series for young adults, The Shadowlands Chronicles , and Skyborn , a post-apocalypse story with airships.
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