On Friday 25 January 2008 14:47, Stewart McCoy rattled on the keyboard: > Dear All, > > I have been told, I hope reliably, that, if, at the time of Dowland, you > wanted to attack an army of soldiers armed with muskets, you would first > send a small group of soldiers ahead to draw their fire. Before the enemy > could reload, the rest of your army attacked them. Needless to say, the men > in that small group stood little chance of surviving. They were known as > the Forlorn Hope. It comes from the Dutch "verloren hoop", meaning "lost > troop", but translates conveniently into English, because those soldiers > had a forlorn hope of surviving. > This is from wikipedia and I'm not sure if it's correct. The dutch word 'hoop' means 'hope' but can also mean a pile of something. So it's a double meaning. taco
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