It’s curious how an utilization of anything can transform as time passes. Like the tailbone or the appendix, many things have survived from yesteryear that have lost all factors to survive. However they do survive, clueless dinosaurs from a previous age that have adapted themselves to newer uses, learning to be a croc or a lizard along the way. The lanyard, that curious piece of string that shows up in all places and comes attached with all sorts of things, is one remnant of a previous age.
It’s unclear regarding if the first lanyard came up. And for what purpose. Being ostensibly a bit of string it could have found some useful business in a previous day. Nor could it be said with any confidence that its first use and main were defined in the army camps of pre-modern Europe. Chances are versions of lanyard were utilized in other countries for other reasons for hanging blade, or a hat, or tugging at the beard of a tough taskmaster. But, company claims as the designer with this huge bit of string comes from the navy and the army only. The lanyard was originally a lengthy piece of cord around one meter in length that was employed to secure the jack-knife or the blade. The tradition developed of wearing the lanyard on the left shoulder attached with a jack-knife which was tucked to the left breast-pocket. Along with and the position (left shoulder or right) have changed from this to that but the lanyard has preserved its ornamental position on the breasts of military men the past several centuries from tin-pot dictators in the interiors of Africa to stocky four-star Generals in US Army, from exaggerated royal princes in interesting clothes to artificial presidents in Amazon jungles. Other sources maintain that the lanyard was first used to tie the fodder for the horses pulling the cannons. Later, its use deviated to taking the fire-trigger on the artillery, an use that remains even today in a few older methods. With its experience with ropes and knots, the navy states the lanyard was its creation. Curiously, in the navy too it wound up at the same place a kind of collar for the neck for the men in uniform. Different uses of the lanyard were made within the camps. Some used their sabers to be tied by it to their wrists allowing the pistol to be fired by them with exactly the same hand the phrase dragoon, French in origin, derives out of this application. Afterwards when guns became standard issue, the gun was linked to the uniform with the lanyard. Every where we realize that the lanyard stayed close to the primary object of the job of the men in uniform.
Times have changed. The adage that sounded hollow many years back that the pen is mightier than the sword has fought back in favor of the wielder of intellectual resources. Today, the lanyard sometimes appears more in the company of civilians than in the company of the men in uniform. The lanyard comes attached with the knife, the torch, the pencil, the banner, the whistle and what maybe not. Sets from cellular phones to iPods and digicams gain the hallowed business of the lanyard, as client tools get more miniaturized. It’s an indication of the changing times that the most empowering devices (devices and cameras) are now connected with anything that was similarly the companion of symbols of power recently guns) and (swords.
To not be left behind, the metaphor of empowerment is wanted by charitable causes. MakePovertyHistory, the international campaign to finish extreme poverty around the world, has chosen the simple lanyard as symbolic of sympathy with the just cause of liberation from oppression. As the official web site itself adds: By supporting Make Poverty History we are able to show our purpose as liberators but not in ways that is unpleasant and boring but interesting and new!. The lanyard can hold the keys to freedom and it also doubles as a cellular phone holder!. There you have it empowerment from the humblest of sources.
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