Knights Templar

[Noelia]

So, John and I were talking today about this topic and neither of us could make any sense of of this, so maybe you guys can help:

I know I've asked this before, If I remember correctly, with the expression "court martial", but it's just that I don't understand this construction and curiosity is killing me.

If you've seen or read "The Da Vinci Code" you know about the Knights Templar

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar

And what I don't understand is the construction of that name.

"Knights" should be the noun and "Templar " tje adjective, so it should be "templar knights"

By saying "Knight templar" my foreign mind understand that we're talking about templars, that happen to be knigts, is that so? Where "Knight" becomes the adjective and so "templar" is the noun.

Am I making any sense here?

[sendai]

Yup, you're making sense. It's a set phrase, so we English speakers don't think of it as a noun and adjective. I'm 99% sure that it's "backwards" because it was translated from another language (Latin or whatever). Basically the same deal as court martial.

Another (uncommon) example: knight errant

[Noelia]

Oh, Ok, the explanation of the bad translation does make sense. It just sounds weird to my ears and I wasn't sure if it was a special kind of construction or how would people see it from the native-speaking point of view. Thanks.