Galaranting

Consider me blown away! There I was, innocently typing one of my scintillating stories in Microsoft Word, when I chanced to look at the little red squigglies calling my attention to my incorrectly spelled words and/or words that Word had not seen fit to recognize (Sabra, Ruggles, 'ol). I noticed an unexpected little red squiggly under the word "galavant." Hmm, thought I, checking to see if I had left out a letter in a fit of quick typing. But no. This was so strange. Why were the little Microsoft spelling gremlins taking issue with this fabulous word of words?

Off I scurried to TheFreeDictionary.com to get to the bottom of this. Lo and behold, as they say, "galavant" offered up simply this: a variation of gallivant.

Gallivant? Really? Really?! I am going to go out on a limb here and say I have NEVER seen it spelled that way. And yet, there it is. The Online Etymology Dictionary doesn't even have a "galavant" entry! Only "gallivant" is there!

What is the meaning of this? Do we blame Canada? You know, when I was in Korea I got to learn a lot about the ways we crazy United Statesians have been deviant spellers, surrounded as I was by Canadians not to mention the Brits who started it all. Well, to all my peeps of the Commonwealth of Nations...what do you have to say for yourselves? Do you galavant or do you gallivant?

And now aren't you curious to know more about this story that includes the words Sabra, Ruggles, ol', and galavant??? What could it be?!

Gallivant. Man. Who woulda thunkit?