And the caddie you see helping champion golfers win their fortunes was once a bit of a cad.

That’s what they tell me.

I have tried to play golf, but someone keeps putting a big lake or a tree in the way. 

I played on the Gold Coast a few times but the place where most golfers hit their little white balls had a sign that said “beware of snakes”.

I can imagine the person who erected the sign had a field day each afternoon collecting the balls that golfers decided to leave uncollected.

Anyway, back to caddie.

My big dictionary takes up several pages to describe a caddie.

In days of old, the younger sons of noble families often entered, or were required to enter, the army.

They were known as cadets but eventually as caddies.

One of the experts I consulted said a caddie was once so far down the line of succession that a family could afford to lose him. I’m sure that could have been expressed better.

Another said that in 10 years a caddie could be “cutting the throats of nations”.

I think that person wanted nobody to misunderstand what he was trying to say – but he did say it in 1911.

The Romans had a word caput, which meant head. By a circuitous route, which you don’t want to know about, a cadet became one in waiting to be the family head. In Scotland, the heads of the family weren’t dying quickly enough, so the cadet moved around the 

countrywide getting whatever odd jobs that came his way.

He even became a bus conductor in the early days of buses, if we can believe Charles Dickens.

He was a person everybody looked down on (apologies to modern bus conductors). 

That cadet became a caddie.

He even became a cad, a person who was held in contempt but who hung around hoping to pick up any loose change by doing lowly paid jobs.

My big dictionary mentioned this practice was common around universities, especially Oxford. 

And I thought everybody who went to Oxford were . . . oh, never mind.

A cad even became an unbooked passenger picked up by the driver who pocketed the fare.

Over the years the meanings of a cad and a caddie separated, so that a caddie still undertook menial jobs for money, but a cad became, well, a cad.

My big dictionary describes a cad as “a fellow of low vulgar manners and behaviour”. 

Author Max Cryer described a cad as a person “capable of ungentlemanly behaviour”, whatever that means. But I’m sure you know.

But what of caddie?

In 1634 it meant “any young gentleman latelie come from France pransing, with his short scarlet cloake and his long rapier”.

These days a caddie is one who is found mainly on the golf course – and it’s an honourable occupation. The word refers to a person who carries the golfer’s clubs and offers words of encouragement, such as “there’s a big lake ahead”.

In 1850 poet Arthur Clough commented “If I should chance to run over a cad, I can pay for the damage if ever so bad”.

I don’t think he liked cads.

This sentence has nothing to do with cads or caddies, but while I was researching those words I came across a 1911 dictionary comment that said “cackling farts” were eggs.

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