I have a pet peeve which may not resonate with some of you. I am provoked to post about it as a result of reading an excellent article by SDH in a recent issue of, I think it was, Sports Afield in which Steve repeatedly rings the bells for the virtues of "English" walnut. He is of course writing about Juglans Regia ... and his praise is quite accurate.
But in my opinion there is nothing English about Juglans Regia and when I first learned, in the 1950s, that there was such a thing in the universe as a custom rifle, the expression did not exist. It was French or Circassian or Caucasian or European walnut, less frequently, Old World walnut. None of the great prewar makers whose works are so often the subject of this forum, knew of it as English walnut. The books on gunsmithing and the American Rifleman never used that terminology. I have the Rifleman back to its start in 1923 but frankly don't have the energy to search for the first use of "English", in any event, postwar, there was and has been an efflorescence of writing about guns in additional periodicals and books. My impression is that "English" began to be used in the 1970s. It is now almost universal ..... but it is a thoroughly inaccurate misnomer. Juglans Regia originated on the Continent and has been planted widely, but little if any of it actually comes to us from the United Kingdom. I cannot understand how the term got started and why astute gunmakers like Steve use it.
