Like much of the lexicon in our industry, the word freelance is rooted in the martial dictionary. The term itself refers to mercenaries (ouch!) whose lance, as it were, is not as much free of charge as it is independent from any allegiance.
At face value, this doesn’t paint a particularly pretty picture. Indeed, it gets worse if you dig a little further: men operating in what were called ‘free companies’ as sidekicks to regular troops regularly spent their free time merrily plundering and pillaging villages that happened to be in the vicinity.
In other words, that freelancer you have just employed to cover for an art director that’s gone AWOL, doesn’t exactly carry the great
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