thanks of troy - but what about "bachelor" - and why are the two terms so different? my Canadian Oxford gives the historical meaning of "bachelor" as "a young knight serving under another's banner" - so does this mean once he turns to husbandry (agriculture), he's settled down and married? And why is a spinster a "woman, especially an older one, thought unlikely to marry" when a bachelor is just "an unmarried man" - no reference to age and no apparent stigma?

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.