Posted by Dave Thewlis on September 18, 2008 at 04:25:09 user dthewlis.
In Reply to: Re: Riddle of The Sands- opinion posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on September 17, 2008 at 22:26:28:
If Georgette Heyer can be taken as a guide, during the Regency a "Corinthian" was a "society" amateur who excelled in sports and adopted a presence (clothing, grooming, etc.) to identify himself as one of this set. It's not hard to see the label surviving to describe the amateur sportsman while possibly dropping, or broadening, the association with a particular set of people in society.