I know what a King and a Queen are - But what the heck is a Jack in playing cards?

[Phlosphr]

I was playing Rummy the other day and and I realized I had no idea waht a Jack is. I now what a King is and a queen for that matter in the whole royal order of things... But what the heck is a Jack?

[Alive At Both Ends]

Originally Posted by Phlosphr

I was playing Rummy the other day and and I realized I had no idea waht a Jack is. I now what a King is and a queen for that matter in the whole royal order of things... But what the heck is a Jack?

Well, posh people call it a Knave. But I don't know why it's called either name.

[capybara]

Well, in other Germanic languages it's the knabe, knecht, etc-- the knave, which is basically a boy servant/squire. Knave doesn't get a bad connotation until the 13th c. Why in cards? Dunno.

[John Mace]

I always kinda wondered about that two. Here's what wikipedia says:

As early as the mid-1500s the jack was called the knave. The card came to be known as the jack during the middle of the 19th century, when card manufacturers began to label playing cards to indicate their value with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Kn, Q, K, A. The obvious confusion between "Kn" and "K" led to the renaming of the knave, being out-ranked by the king. However, books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century evidently still referred to the "knave".

No indication where the name came from, though. I would've thought "prince" to be an obvious choice to avoid confusion, but since "knave" has a negative connotation, maybe Jack (or some other name) makes sense, too.

[daffyduck]

Some Tarot decks include a "Prince" character but his function is to carry out the wishes of the King and Queen so even this "royal" character acts in service to the King and Queen, just as a servant (knave) would. In other words, whether it is called a jack, a knave, or a prince, the card represents someone who expedites the wishes of the King and Queen. Don't forget that in the social structure of the times, a royal servant (especially a headservant who delt directly with the King and Queen) would have worn courtly clothes, would have had courtly manners and would have been considered of high social status by the general public.

[robardin]

I always assumed it was called a "Jack" in the vein of it being such a common name that it could be used as a "situational personification of a generic man", as in Jack-of-all-trades, Jack-O'-Lantern, Jack Frost, Jack-be-nimble, Jack-be-quick...

And of course conversely, only the very out-of-touch "doesn't know Jack", not even his excrement

[Moirai]

I always assumed it was a knight.

[spingears]

Originally Posted by robardin

And of course conversely, only the very out-of-touch "doesn't know Jack", not even his excrement

Once a King always a King,

Once a Queen always a Queen,

Once a Knight is enough if it's done r . . .

[Nava]

It's a page. The page of the Knight - which is missing in the cards you guys are used to but very much present in Spanish cards. The one we dropped from the original suits was the Queen.

And don't bother getting your head out of the gutter: that ain't no King's Knights.