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Quick Question Below
The verb to canton or to put troops into quarters:
Is this a verb that is used nowadays, or, like spinster, just a word that is dying out?
If there are any people in the military who might know whether canton is used nowadays, I sure would appreciate knowing.
Best regards,
WW
P.S. And, if cantoning troops is a pretty current usage, then does it matter where they're cantoned? Cantoned in a tent? Cantoned in a neighboring farmhouse? Or are they restrictively cantoned in something more formal? I would imagine wherever they're cantoned is not of importance; just the fact that they're cantoned somewhere.
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to canton or to put troops into quarters
Is that the same as billet?
Haven't heard of "canton" although it makes me think of China which, if I recall correctly, was once broken down into cantons. Then there's Cantonese cookery...
Edit: Just found this -
canton - 1522, from M.Fr. canton, from It. (Lombard dialect) cantone "region," especially in the mountains, augmentive of L. canto "corner," meaning extended to "section of a country." Originally in Eng. a term in heraldry and flag descriptions; applied to the sovereign states of the Swiss republic from 1611.
The noun may have been verbed.
Possibly you'd put up your troops in any old corner.
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China which, if I recall correctly, was once broken down into cantons
Why does this make me think of Swiss cheese?
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Then there's Cantonese cookery...If you dare try to turn this into a food thread I shall post my favorite fish recipes of all time!  ~~~~~ WW, never heard it, either.
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>>..broken down into cantons
Why does this make me think of Swiss cheese?Ah, yes! Full of holes - like my memory.  Swiss roll, Spring roll, easily confused...
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my favorite fish recipes Know any Chinese fish recipes, Matertera? "First, fillet the fish..." 
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Canton is not in current use in the US military, and in 30 years of hanging around with those types I've never heard it as a verb.
Back in the mid 70s my brother was in the US Army, stationed in Frankfurt, Germany -- he referred to the barracks area as a cantonment. In the context he used, it was a permanent billet, unlike the dictionary definition of cantonment which indicates that cantonment means a temporary billet.
Of course, you have to remember that temporary has a somewhat different meaning to the military. When I was a kid growing up in the DC area, the entire north side of the National Mall from the White House all the way west to the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial was polluted visually with "temporary" office buildings that had been erected in 1942, shortly after we became involved in WW II. These buildings were still in use in 1968 (a long story having to do with Ted's almost getting caught bootlegging liquor from DC into Virginia). It seems to me these "tempos" were still there in January 1973 (Nixon's second inaugural), so they were at least 30 years old when finally removed. Some of the land they occupied is taken up with the Vietnam Wall.
TEd
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Thanks, Ted. You've probably hit the nail on the head--that to canton troops was to set up temporary quarters for them, even though the word you're familiar with having heard, cantonment, meant a more permanent set of buildings. Interesting.
WW
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Another word usually used with similar military connotations, mostly during the days of army encampments
(more on the march than at base):
from the AHD :
bivouac
SYLLABICATION: bivˇouˇac
PRONUNCIATION: bv-k, bvwk
NOUN: A temporary encampment often in an unsheltered area.
INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: bivˇouˇacked, bivˇouˇackˇing, bivˇouˇacs also bivˇouˇacks
To camp in a bivouac.
ETYMOLOGY: French, from German dialectal beiwacht, supplementary night watch : bei-, beside (from Middle High German bi-, from Old High German; see ambhi in Appendix I) + Wacht, watch, vigil (from Middle High German wahte, from Old High German wahta; see weg- in Appendix I).
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