Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
avant-garde, cutting edge, leading edge, van, vanguard (nn.)
These synonyms are actually the same French phrase borrowed twice into English. The French means “advance guard,” and we took it into Middle English, where it evolved into the anglicized vanguard (with the stress moving forward to the new first syllable, van), with first a military reference and then a figurative one, referring to anyone “out front” in a venture: to be in the van is to be ahead of the main body of troops. Then we borrowed avant-garde again in the early twentieth century, this time primarily for the figurative sense of “those in the forefront of an artistic, political, or intellectual movement.” For avant-garde (which can also be an adjective), Americans use two pronunciations, an anglicized uh-vahn(t)-GAHRD and an approximation of the French, uh-VAHN-GAHR, usually with the middle syllable nasalized. Leading edge and the cliché cutting edge are now high-frequency replacements for many uses of avant-garde and nearly all uses of in the van. See also STATE OF THE ART; VAN (1).
