Editing Picardy third (section)

===Name===
The term was first used in 1768 by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], although the practice was used in music centuries earlier.<ref>Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ''Dictionnaire De Musique'' (Amsterdam: M. M. Rey, 1768), p.320. https://www.loc.gov/resource/muspre1800.101611/?sp=428.</ref><ref>Don Michael Randel (ed.), ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.)'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press, 2003), p.&nbsp;660. {{ISBN|0-674-01163-5}}.</ref> Rousseau argues that “the [practice] remained longer in Church Music, and, consequently, in Picardy, where there is music in a lot of cathedrals and churches,” and “the term is used jokingly by musicians”, suggesting it might have never had an academic basis, a tangible origin, and might have sprung out of idiomatic jokes in France in the first half of the 18th century.
 
Robert Hall hypothesizes that, instead of deriving from the [[Picardy|Picardy region of France]], it comes from the Old French word "picart", meaning "pointed" or "sharp" in northern dialects, and thus refers to the musical sharp that transforms the minor third of the chord into a major third.<ref>Robert A. Hall, Jr., "How Picard was the Picardy Third?", ''Current Musicology'' 19 (1975): pp.&nbsp;78–80.</ref>

The few Old French dictionaries in which the word ''picart'' (fem. ''picarde'') appears give “''aigu'', ''piquant''” as a definition. While ''piquant'' is quite straightforward—meaning spiky, pointy, sharp—''aigu'' is much more ambiguous, because it has the inconvenience of having at least three meanings: “high-pitched/treble”, “sharp” as in a sharp blade, and “acute”. Considering the definitions also state the term can refer to a nail ("''clou''") (read masonry nail), a pike or a spit, it seems ''aigu'' might be there used to mean "pointy" / “sharp”. However, not “sharp” in the desired sense, the one relating to a raised pitch, but in the sense of a sharp blade, which would thus completely discredit the word ''picart'' as the origin for the Picardy third, which also seems unlikely considering the possibility that ''aigu'' was also used to refer to a high(er)-pitched note, and a treble sound, thus perfectly explaining the use of the word ''picarde'' to designate a chord whose third is higher than it should be.{{Original research inline|date=August 2022}}

Not to be ignored is the existence of the proverb "''ressembler le Picard''"<ref>{{Cite book|last=La Curne de Sainte-Palaye|first=J.B.|title=Dictionnaire historique de l'ancien langage françois ou glossaire de l'ancien langage françois depuis son origine jusqu'au siècle de Louis XIV|publisher=Glossarium de Du Cange|year=1882|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref> ("to resemble an inhabitant of Picard") which meant “''éviter le danger''” (to avoid danger). This would link back to the humorous character of the term, that would have thus been used to mock supposedly cowardly composers who used the Picardy third as a way to avoid the gravity of the minor third, and perhaps the backlash they would have faced from the academic elite and the Church by going against the time’s scholasticism.{{Original research inline|date=August 2022}}

Ultimately, the origin of the name "tierce picarde" will likely never be known for sure, but what evidence there is seems to point towards these idiomatic jokes and proverbs as well as the literal meaning of ''picarde'' as high-pitched and treble.{{Original research inline|date=August 2022}}