Kemosabe and Tonto

Originally a radio drama, The Lone Ranger first aired in 1933 and ran through 1954. It featured the adventures of a mysterious masked man who traveled the West with his faithful Native American companion Tonto and his white horse Silver, righting wrongs.

It became a book series and then a very successful television series, which ran from 1949 to 1957.

Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger riding Silver and
Jay Silverheels as Tonto riding Scout, 1956

Kemosabe (Ke-mo sah-bee) is the term that was used by Tonto on the TV and radio programs in addressing his partner the Lone Ranger.

Native American writer Sherman Alexie, who is of Coeur D'Alene descent, has said that kemosabe means “idiot” in Apache. “They were calling each other 'idiot' all those years,” he told an interviewer in 1996, a few years after the publication of his story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

It’s more complicated and there is no conclusive evidence as to its true definition or its roots. Series creator Fran Striker himself never explained it. Most people interpreted it to mean “faithful friend or trusty scout,” and this is the most common interpretation. The Yale Book of Quotations cites a boys’ camp in Mullet Lake, Mich., named Ke Mo Sah Bee, and on separate occasions, Striker’s son and daughter each suggested this might be where the show got it from. 

To further complicate matters, "tonto" is a Spanish word that means stupid, foolish; idiot, or fool. Tonto's tribal identification is ambiguous. On the radio series, he was reportedly described as a Potawatomi though that tribe did not live in the southwest, where the show is set.

In the most recent film adaptation of the series, Johnny Depp is still Tonto and still says things like, “Justice is what I seek, kemosabe.”

Chauvinist

Image: Gerd Altmann

Nobody likes a chauvinist. Chauvinism is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people. 

In English, the word has come to be used in some quarters as shorthand for male chauvinism. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary begins its first example of the use of the term chauvinism with "an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex. But it can also be described as a form of extreme patriotism and nationalism.

The word is said to be an eponym dating back to the 1840s. Nicholas Chauvin was a French soldier who glorified Napoleon and exhibited extreme ultra-nationalism, viewing the French as superior to all others. Then again, I also found that Nicholas Chauvin may never have actually existed. he may have been a fictional character, invented to inspire patriotism.

Until the 20th century, the term “male chauvinism” had not been used to describe sexism — as in men believing they are superior to women. This is the definition that stuck, and the “male” part of the term was eventually dropped.

Female chauvinism is the belief that women are superior to men. Feminist Betty Friedan observed that "...the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class is [...] female chauvinism." In the book Female Chauvinist Pigs, it is argued that many young women in the United States and beyond are replicating male chauvinism and older misogynist stereotypes. 

Maverick

To call someone a maverick today means that you see them as an independent person who thinks differently, and the term applies to many professions and fields. It is generally considered to be a positive nickname but it might also apply to someone who doesn't follow the rules or norms of a field.   

The origin of this eponym is Samuel Maverick, a cattle rancher in Texas in the 19th century. At the time, the law was that all ranchers had to brand their cattle - but Maverick refused. 

The dictionary, in North America, will say that a maverick can also mean an unbranded calf, which makes sense. 

Maverick was also an American Western television series from 1957 - 1962. It was a comedic western originally starring James Garner as Bret Maverick, a poker player moving through the 19th-century American frontier. 

James Garner as Bret Maverick and Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, Link