If you’re feeling washed out, fed up or downright lousy,
World War One is to blame.
New research has shown how the conflict meant that hundreds
of words and phrases came into common parlance thanks to the trenches.
Among the list of everyday terms found to have originated or
spread from the conflict are cushy, snapshot, bloke, wash out, conk out, blind
spot, binge drink and pushing up daisies.
The research has been conducted by Peter Doyle, a military
historian, and Julian Walker, an etymologist, who have analysed thousands of
documents from the period — including letters from the front, trench
newspapers, diaries, books and official military records - to trace how
language changed during the four years of the war.
They found that the war brought military slang into the
mainstream, imported French and even German words to English and saw words from
local dialects become part of national conversation.
The results of the research are included in a new book,
Trench Talk: Words of the First World War, which documents how new words and
phrases originated, while others were spread from an earlier, narrow context,
to gain new, wider meanings.
Many of the words were created by soldiers to describe their
unfamiliar surroundings and circumstances. While they had to come up with names
for new items like “trench coats” and “duckboards”, other, more descriptive
phrases were also developed.
“Lousy” and “crummy” both referred to being infested with
lice, while “fed up” emerged as a widespread expression of weariness among the
men.
Communiqués from headquarters were derisively known as
“bumf” — from “b--fodder”, a term for toilet paper.
Such reports could often give rise to “guff” (rumours),
although this was not to be confused with “gaffs”, the term for makeshift
theatres built behind the lines to entertain the troops.
Other phrases to develop were “snapshot” (from a quickly
aimed and taken rifle shot), and “wash out”, which described a process by which
aspiring officers who failed their commissions and were sent back to their
regiments, or “washed out”. By 1915 the term was being used to signify any kind
of failure.
“Dud” also came to take on a wider meaning for something
which failed, from the large number of faulty shells which did not explode.
Parcels from home would be “whacked out” or “whacked round”
by the recipients, so they were shared among friends - each getting “a fair
whack”.
The brutality of life at the front also gave rise to many
euphemisms, to describe death and fear.
Comrades who were killed were said to be “pushing up daisies”,
or to have “gone west” “snuffed it”, “been skittled” or “become a landowner”.
Those who were afraid were said to have “got the wind up”.
Many terms which were particular to one region or social
class before the war entered common usage afterwards.
Examples include “scrounging” - to describe foraging for
food, such as wild rabbits - which is thought to have derived from a northern
dialect, and “binge” - to describe overindulgence in alcohol - previously just
used in Lancashire. “Blotto” was another term for drunk popularised during the
war.
Lower class words like “gasper” or “fag” and “bloke” - which
previously referred just to a gentleman - moved from their narrow social roots.
Several phrases from the criminal underworld also entered
wider use, among them “chum” - formerly slang for an accomplice - “rumbled” (to
be found out) and “knocked off” (stolen).
Many more new terms came from the mix of nationalities
thrown together by the war.
The French term souvenir replaced keepsake as the primary
word for a memento, following exchanges with the locals, while officers being
sacked were said to have “come ungummed” - from the French “dégommér”, to
dismiss. This quickly developed into “come unstuck”.
Other words arrived with troops from the US - such as
“cooler”, for prison - and Canada - including “swipe”, for acquiring something
by means that were not necessarily above board.
Advances in technology also brought with them new phrases.
Aircraft were known to “conk out”, while pilots also complained of “blind
spots” where they were unable to see.
Many of the technical devices encountered by soldiers could
be quite baffling and hard to describe, which helps to explain the widespread
emergence of the word “thingumyjig” from the period.
Whereas ‘lousy’ was used to described soldiers covered in
lice, in the 21st Century it has become more than that, and now has
multiple meanings. These being:
·
Infested with lice.
·
Mean or contemptible: “that was a lousy thing to
do.”
·
wretchedly bad/ miserable
Another example is that of ‘fag’
which now has several different meanings.
verb (used with object), fagged, fagging.
1.
to tire or weary by labor; exhaust (often followed by out):
The long climb fagged us out.
2.
British. to require (a younger public-school pupil) to do menial chores.
3.
Nautical. to fray or unlay the end of (a rope).
verb (used without object), fagged, fagging.
4.
Chiefly British. to work until wearied; work hard:
to fag away at French.
5.
British Informal. to do menial chores for an older public-school pupil.
noun
6.
Slang. a cigarette.
7.
a fag end, as of cloth.
8.
a rough or defective spot in a woven fabric; blemish; flaw.
9.
Chiefly British. drudgery; toil.
10.
British Informal. a younger pupil in a British public school required toperform certain menial tasks for, and submit to the hazing of, an olderpupil.
11.
a drudge.
And also:
noun, Slang.
1.
Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used torefer to a male homosexual.
2.
Offensive. a contemptible or dislikeable person.
Another interesting
one is ‘snapshot’. Once meaning “ a quickly aimed and taken rifle shot” which
97 years later means “an informal photograph, especially one taken quickly by a
hand-held camera.” In the early 1900s, it would take several minutes for a
photograph to be taken… and the cameras definitely were not hand-held! Cameras
were very unlikely to be seen by the poor, as it was very expensive to have your
photo taken in those days. In these days, it doesn’t matter how much money you
have, cameras are everywhere. Yet if you were to tell someone in the time
period of 1914-1918 that one day people would have hand-held devices to take
photos with and take the famous “selfie”, they would laugh in your face and say
you were mad!
Bibliography:
It's a great article you found and the dictionary entry is useful but where is the analysis of how the words have been coined and changed in meaning since? Please add a comment using some terminology.
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