Tuesday
Jun022009
Freelance: Origin of the Term & Sir Walter Scott
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 9:26AM 
Sir Walter ScottThe term freelance, meaning a "self-employed person," is a term with an interesting past. The original freelances were medieval Italian (condottiere) and French (compagnies grandes) knights, free men who would sell their skills with the lance to any master, whether his cause was good or bad.
The name freelance for these knights was invented by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe (1820).
Freelance doesn't seem to have been applied to writers until about 60 years later.
tagged Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott, freelance, knighs, word origins, writer in Books, Did You Know, Fun Facts | Permalink | Print Article
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott, freelance, knighs, word origins, writer in Books, Did You Know, Fun Facts | Permalink | Print Article 
Reader Comments (2)
thats good to know. lol since i do alot of that !!!! thanks for posting jinxi u rock!!
that is interesting. I always thought that was kind of what it meant, but I wasn't exactly sure if it was different from self-employed somehow. Where do you get all this information?