How World War I gave us 'cooties'

[Hauksbee 103]

From a Yahoo article announcing up-coming CNN WWI coverage:

 

How World War I gave us 'cooties'

 

The Brits called it the "Great War." To the Yanks, it was the "World War." No one wanted to think there could be a second. Though World War I, which began 100 years ago next month, devastated lives and landscapes, its effect on language was almost paradoxically positive. It spawned hundreds of new words and popularized scores of old ones. Many of them survive today -- there are "cooties," "camouflage," "scrounge" and "dud," for example -- but many have lost their once-widely recognized associations with the war that was hoped would "end war."

 

Total war, as the world twice found out in the past century, is a turbulent time. It is for language, too. As new concerns, new methods, new technologies and new experiences multiply, vocabulary by necessity tries to keep up.

 

Obscure old words can get a new lease on life. World War I gave the English language new terms as varied as "blimp" and "Boches" and "devil dog" and even "D-Day." It popularized military slang like "doughboy" and "fed up." It dragooned older terms for wider application, such as "Yank" and "no-man's land."

 

Some words prominent in 1914-18 have pretty much fallen from use. Others remain as well-known as the war's idealistic slogans, like H. G. Wells' call for "a war to end wars" and Woodrow Wilson's to make the world "safe for democracy.

 

WAR'S LASTING LEGACY

 

As a multilingual war, it promptly enriched the English language with terms of international origin. Air reconnaissance made military and naval "camouflage," another French word, a necessity. The same might be said of the French 75 cocktail, named for the war's most effective artillery piece. And historians writing in English still use the Gallic "poilu" for a French combat soldier and "Boches" for the Germans.

 

Older terms and nicknames sometimes gained new popularity that guaranteed they'd remain in English long after soldiers returned home. George M. Cohan's smash hit "Over There" (1917) was the catchiest American patriotic song ever, and when he wrote that "The Yanks are coming," he followed the British, not the American, use of the Civil War term to encompass all Americans, north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

 

"Doughboy" was a new one on most people, but it had meant an infantryman since the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, for no very clear reason; [Actually, it was for a very good reason. During the Mexican War, the tramping feet of infantry columns raised up a lot of dust. The uniforms of the troops were often covered with it. The cavalry units, being on horseback, and thus largely above the moving cloud, mocked the poor grunts by calling them "Adobes". Hauksbee] now, it's the usual synonym for the American soldier of the First World War. "Leatherneck," which also looked new but wasn't, denoted the U.S. Marine, whose 19th-century uniform had featured a high leather collar that sailors ridiculed.

 

Three unexpected things from WWI

 

A Wisconsin newspaper claimed in 1918 that the Germans thought American Marines fought like Teufelhunden, or "devil dogs"; the supposedly German word sounds ersatz, but the English version is still heard in the Corps. (Sailors were "gobs"; fliers were "birdmen"; pals were "buddies": all pre-war, all truly mainstream for the first time in 1914-18.) "G.I.," which meant only "galvanized iron" and "government issue" in World War I, eventually became the World War II term for a U.S. soldier.

 

The everyday life of those soldiers spawned many words and expressions. When kids talk of "cooties," they don't realize what everyone knew by 1918: It was a new term for lice, which burrowed into the clothes of any and all who served on the front lines. "Chow," for food, owes its popularity mostly to the U.S. military of World War I. From the British came the expressions "to scrounge" (to search for and, if necessary, pilfer), "cushy" (enviably comfortable) and "fed up" (disgusted with it all), three salient soldier concepts in any war.

 

From the British came the expressions to 'scrounge' (to search for and, if necessary, pilfer), 'cushy' (enviably comfortable) and 'fed up' (disgusted with it all), three salient soldier concepts in any war.

 

Trench warfare became a sinister science, as front-line troops of every army hunkered down for hundreds of miles in conditions of appalling filth and danger. Playwright George Bernard Shaw, an opponent of the war, popularized the once-uncommon phrase "cannon fodder," which suggested that soldiers of all nations had been impersonally requisitioned to feed the guns or duped into enlisting by interchangeably imperialist rulers.

 

To name what lay between the entrenched armies, modern English enlisted a phrase from the Middle Ages: "no-man's land." The shell-pocked muck between the opposing trenches, bounded by rotting sandbags and rusted heaps of barbed wire, gave the 14th-century meaning of "un-owned or uninhabited territory" a much grimmer connotation.

 

Before World War I, a "dud" was anything or anybody unsatisfactory, but by the time the conflict ended, "dud" referred chiefly to an unexploded shell or bomb, as it does to this day. The British began speaking of defensive "foxholes," dug not by foxes but by soldiers on the battlefield, a word that now may seem as old as shooting wars themselves.

 

The adjustment of a rifle's battle-sight was "zeroing in," a metaphor today's English can't do without. Then there's "D-Day": the very first was September 26, 1918, the starting date of the war-ending Allied offensive in the Argonne Forest.

 

Familiar now as an advertising platform, the helium-filled "blimp" was invented for naval observation in 1915. The British came up with the armored "tank" and named it arbitrarily to keep the weapon secret before its surprise appearance in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

 

The threat of "chemical warfare" and "chemical weapons" had been discussed in the press, but their actual use by Germany in 1915, first in Poland and then in Belgium, raised the war's quotient of barbarism. The Allies quickly followed suit. "Air raids," which began on a small scale in 1914, were carried out by four-winged bombers [i think he means 'four engined' Hauksbee] and German Zeppelins.

 

The idea of bomb-laden squadrons of Zeppelins over London may seem like something from Victorian science fiction, and it was novelist H.G. Wells (author of "War of the Worlds") who invented the most ominous phrase of all.

 

In 1914, he imagined a device that might appear within a generation, whose destructive power would change everything forever. Wells warned that eventually "any little body of malcontents could use it." As though in prophecy of the long shadow the 1914-18 war would cast on the 20th century, Wells coined a now-familiar term for his imaginary superweapon that he believed could easily "wreck half a city."

 

He called it "the atomic bomb."

[JimAttrill 24]

The Royal Marines are called 'bootnecks' by the Navy or sometimes 'boots'.  The reason is the same as for leatherneck, from the high stocks they wore before the 20th Century. 

 

'Cushy' like 'Blighty' is from the Indian Army "First World War (originally Anglo-Indian): from Urdu ḵushī 'pleasure', from Persian ḵuš" as says the Oxford Dictionary.   There are lots of Indian words in English including 'pyjamas', 'bungalow', 'verandah'.  Not surprising really as India was British for 300 years. 

 

It is noticeable that the RNAS had a bigger influence on RAF slang than the British Army.  A good example is 'gash' which originally meant rubbish but later meant anything that was unowned or lying about and therefore could be purloined.  A good example is 'gash bod'  which meant someone who could be used for pushing aircraft about, guard duty etc.  And the denigatory 'zobbit' (sometimes 'zob') which is any commissioned officer.   The British Army uses other words like 'Rupert' instead. 

 

Military slang is often fascinating and was used to define a group and exclude others like civvies (civilians)

 

And I notice that the airport for Kolcatta (aka Calcutta) is 'Dum Dum', named after the armoury that was there once.  And of course that's where the name of the bullet came from. 

 

And here's a WWII one that you won't have heard in the US.  If someone went mad in any way he was described as 'Harpic'.  This comes from the advertising slogan for Harpic toilet cleaner which has always been advertised as 'cleans right around the bend'.   As 'round the bend' is slang in the first place, we now have a slang expression based on a slang expression! 

Edited June 22, 2014 by JimAttrill

[Hauksbee 103]

The other two great, and pervasive words to come from the Raj Indian Army are "Thug', after the strangler cult, and "Mugger", after the river crocodiles.

[JimAttrill 24]

One I have just remembered although it isn't used much outside of the RAF (and maybe the Army) was 'gone doolally' for someone who was not all there.  This is named after a notorious Army transit camp at Deolali as Wiki says: "Deolali transit camp was a transit camp for British troops in Deolali, India, notorious for its unpleasant environment, boredom, and the psychological problems of soldiers that passed through it. Its name is the origin of the phrase "gone doolally". 

 

And faking madness was often called 'working your ticket' which was a discharge from the services.  I believe in the US this is called a 'Section 8'. 

[Hauksbee 103]

...and then there's "khaki" for that particular shade of military green.

[Flyby PC 23]

I know during the Falklands war that the BBC loved to use the term "Yomping" to describe the battle march across country. This was Royal Marine slang, and not popular with the regular army, Paratroopers especially, who didn't use some namby pamby Royal Navy word like "Yomping" to describe what they called Tabbing, as in TAB, Tactical Advance to Battle. You ask a Para if he's been out yomping, and he'll probably teach you some new swear words you won't have heard before.

 

With regards WW1, I think the word joystick came from the war. No explanation required.

 

One I've heard which is wrong is biting the bullet. I've seen that described as biting the bullet to take your mind off pain, but I understand it actually comes from the days of muzzle loading muskets when soldiers bit the end of the powder charge to load their rifles. When you saw troops bite the bullet, they were loading shot and there was going to be a fight. In India, some believe the 1857 mutiny was caused when rumours were spread that the powder cartridges provided by the British were sealed with pig fat, and it was a great insult to Hindus and Muslims to put such an 'unclean' thing in their mouths.

 

Flash in the pan is another musketry expression, when the trigger only ignited the powder on the pan, but failed to ignite the powder in the breech. There was a flash in the pan, but no bullet was fired.

 

Another generic expression which is actually very specific, is the thin red line. I've seen it referring to redcoats, the Big Red One infantry, and Mel Gibson's film, but the term was coined on 25th October 1854 during the Crimean war. During the Battle of Balaclava, to cut a long story short, the Port of Balaclava was vital to the British for their supplies and support, but badly organised and very poorly defended. All that stood between the Port and some 2,500 Russian cavalry was the 93rd Sutherland Highland Regiment. If the Highlanders had formed squares as prudent defence against cavalry, the Russians would have got through to seize Balaclava and cut off the British supplies. So the 93rd met the full on charge of the Russian Cavalry while still in line formation, and stood firm until the Russian Cavalry was routed. Disaster was averted. The action was also witnessed by a Times newspaper correspondent who described the actions of the 93rd as a"thin red streak tipped with a line of steel", and that was when the thin red line expression was actually born.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Flyby PC

[JimAttrill 24]

What was worse with the Indian Mutiny cartridge fiasco was that the Muslims thought the cartridges were oiled with pork fat and the Hindus thought it was cow fat.  It was, I believe a good example of arrogance on the part of the Army top brass to not bother to tell the truth.  And a good example of the power of rumours.  Of course, the Mutiny would have happened anyway. 

[Hauksbee 103]

Other grievances were the intense, and arrogant, proselytizing on the part of English chaplains in the army. The Hindus had a long relationship with God stretching many centuries before Moses. They resented being lectured to by this new, upstart religion which dismissed their traditions as simple idol worship. Also, ominous rumors were swirling that units of the Indian army would be sent overseas to fight/support other British campaigns. Being forced to cross "the Black Sea" would break their caste. There are some others that escape my memory at the moment, but the cartridge kerfuffle was simply the spark set off a larger powder keg of dissatisfactions.

[JimAttrill 24]

And of course a lot of Indian soldiers were sent to the Middle East and even to France in both World Wars.  They were not used in South Africa where I live in what is now called the 'Anglo-Boer' war although a lot of horses and fodder and British soldiers came from there.  The fodder included a pernicious weed that is still around a lot and is called in Afrikaans 'Kakibos' (Khaki bush or weed in English).  Horrible stuff, but I believe that an infusion of it was used to dye the British Army uniforms the brown shade.  Could be a legend though.