Clive Maier Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 Why did Great War soldiers call cigarettes 'coffin nails' long before the health hazards of smoking were known? Was it some sort of word play on 'coughing'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate Wills Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 Clive, This nickname was in general use before the war, and specifically referred to Wills (no relation I assure you) Woodbine brand, which came in packets of five. These were amongst the cheapest on the market, and I imagine the tobacco was of a rough and ready variety and the were cigarettes slimmer than usual, hence the resemblance to nails. The Russian cruiser Askold, which played a part in the Gallipoli campaign, was nicknamed HMS Woodbine because of her five thin funnels. Kate (sometimes fumes but DEFINATELY smokeless) Wills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Maier Posted 31 October , 2003 Author Share Posted 31 October , 2003 Kate, Many thanks for that. My dictionary of slang offered something similar but without the interesting detail. I am not sure the explanation is the right one. Even Woodbines were white and resemblance to a nail would have been absolutely minimal. I can’t imagine anyone searching for a visual analogy for a cigarette and coming up with a nail. Anyway, is there or was there such a thing as a coffin nail? All but the rudest coffins would surely be screwed together if not dovetailed. To go off at a tangent, my father was a very skilled cabinet maker. My brother told me recently that at the lowest ebb of the thirties, the only work Dad could get was making coffins. He regarded it as a sign of craftsmanship never to use any nail larger than a panel pin. He described anyone who habitually hammered the work together as a wood butcher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HERITAGE PLUS Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 Health Hazards of Smoking? See this site for a 19th Century view. http://tobacco.harpweek.com/ Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Bowbrick Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 They probably thought the people behind this were crackpots at the time! Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Parker Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 I didnt realise that the expression "coffin nails" was as old as that. I always took the expression to mean nothing more than a similarity to a nail, ie they're both round and straight, if you see what I mean. Certainly the expression of a person lighting up would be "Another nail in my coffin". I always though "Gaspers" was the more frequently used expression for a cigarette during the early 20th century. Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurel Sercu Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 I do know that being from Flanders, with as my mother tongue ... Dutch, I should keep a low profile in this dispute... But I happen to have a "Pocket Dictionary of American [sic] Slang" (compiled by H. Wentworth and S. Flexner, New York, 1960), and it says : COFFIN NAIL : a cigarette. Since c1890. From the saying that each cigarette one smokes drives one more nail into one's coffin. Correct or not ? No idea. In my language "dat is een nagel van mijn doodkist" would never be used for a cigarette. (It means : "this thing or that person is a nuisance, causes serious trouble, sorrow". And taling about cigarettes and slang ... We have an excellent book, written by an acquaintance, in Ypres, Tony De Bruyne, "Soldatentaal" (Soldiers' language, unfortunately only in Dutch, but with slang words and expressions used by Great War soldiers in Dutch (Flemish), German, French and English.) These are the English words I found referring to or related to cigarettes in English : ASQUITHS : matches of poor quality, French matches. (Min. of Defence Asquith allegedly replied to a pertinent question : Wait and see. And as it took quite some time to get a flame out of French matches ...) CHERRY RIPE : rhyming slang for "pipe" BLINDER : cheap cigarette, a "woodbine" BONFIRE : cigarette BRADS CANTEEN STINKERS : cigarettes of poor quality CHOKER / GASPER : cheap cigarette GIPPY : Egyptian cigarette HALF A MO : cigarette (from a cartoon by Bert Thomas, showing a Cockney soldier who in the thick of the fight lights a cigarette saying : "Arf a mo, Kaiser !" HORRORS : cheap cigarette brand "oros" NAILS or COFFIN NAILS : cigarettes (!) NICKY : carefully nicked off cigarette end, to be kept and smoked later. RED HUSSAR : well known brand YELLOW PERILS : Gold Flake cigarettes, sold in yellow packets And let me pick out one German word, which takes us back to the origin of this thread : SARGNAGEL : Sarg = coffing ; Nagel = nail. German for cigarette. (Compare Coffin Nail) And just in case someone asks : Yes, but who used the word first, German or British soldiers ? I haven't got the foggiest idea... Aurel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Bowbrick Posted 31 October , 2003 Share Posted 31 October , 2003 I always though "Gaspers" was the more frequently used expression for a cigarette during the early 20th century. Geoff Geoff, I heard this expression used a lot when I was growing up in London by the 'Great War' generation and would therefore agree with you. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Maier Posted 1 November , 2003 Author Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Great stuff everyone. Thank you. It seems I was completely wrong in thinking that cigarettes were regarded as benign at the time of the Great War. That being so, I think ‘another nail in the coffin’ must be the right explanation. I did wonder whether Kate’s Woodbines were so awful that smokers were ‘coughing nails’. This was certainly true of the atrocious Turf cigarettes that put me off smoking at the age of ten or so. These appeared around the end of WWII and the attraction for us boys was that the cardboard tray was printed with a grainy blue picture of a footballer. It was a feeble austerity-age simulacrum of the pre-war cigarette cards that we treasured. I based my faulty perception of smoking on what I saw in the 40s and 50s. Just about everyone smoked. Buses and train carriages were filled with a blue haze. In the cinema, the projector beam stood out sharply in the smoky air. There was an ash tray on the back of every cinema and bus seat, and in the arm of every train seat. Ash trays stood on every desk and table. When as an office boy I had to deliver something to the board room, I had to machete my way through the fug in there. During this time I don’t recall anyone who had any health reservations about smoking. I have a lot more than a blurry picture of Wilf Mannion to thank Turf cigarettes for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HERITAGE PLUS Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Clive Is this the packet you remember? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Maier Posted 1 November , 2003 Author Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Heritage, That's the one! They were awful. I think they contained exactly what it said on the packet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HERITAGE PLUS Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Clive sorry no Wilf Mannion but here is are some card examples: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Maier Posted 1 November , 2003 Author Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Heritage, Fantastic! Nostalgia plus! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 I'm pretty sure that the health implications of smoking were well known before WW1 . In the UK, I think there was an Act of Parliament that prohibited the sale of tobacco to minors in the first decade of the 20th century although I don't know at what age this applied. On a lighter note, (no pun intended), I have a 1909 recording of the the Melbourne born music hall entertainer, Billy Williams, known as "The Man in the Velvet Suit", singing "Little Willie's Woodbines". Despite the main aim of the number, which was to drag an Ohooo! Ahaa! from the audience as Little Billy is made fearfully ill from his illegal purchase and is caught by "PC Binns the bounder" who steals his last Wills whiff, this piece of popular culture also makes clear the dangers involved, albeit in a lightheaterted way. Excuse me , cough, cough Terry Reeves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hussar Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 Just a thought, might it not have come from the fact that carpenters, joiners( and, presumably, coffin makers) etc. had a habit of holding their nails in their mouths whilst they were working, like smokers do with their 'Tabs', so they might have likened them to 'nails' which made you cough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate Wills Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 But coffins were screwed together, weren't they? Certainly the lids were screwed down. Maybe nails were used in paupers coffins. I must do a bit of digging... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will O'Brien Posted 1 November , 2003 Share Posted 1 November , 2003 I must do a bit of digging... Kate perhaps you should rephrase that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeppoSapone Posted 2 November , 2003 Share Posted 2 November , 2003 Clive, This nickname was in general use before the war, and specifically referred to Wills (no relation I assure you) Woodbine brand, which came in packets of five. These were amongst the cheapest on the market, and I imagine the tobacco was of a rough and ready variety and the were cigarettes slimmer than usual, hence the resemblance to nails. The Russian cruiser Askold, which played a part in the Gallipoli campaign, was nicknamed HMS Woodbine because of her five thin funnels. Kate (sometimes fumes but DEFINATELY smokeless) Wills From the autograph book of a V.A.D. at Crawley Down, Sussex. An entry from a wounded member of 1/24 Londons (Queens). "North south east and west, Tommy always smokes the best" Or was L/Cpl Farley being ironic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeppoSapone Posted 2 November , 2003 Share Posted 2 November , 2003 Clive, This nickname was in general use before the war, and specifically referred to Wills (no relation I assure you) Woodbine brand, which came in packets of five. These were amongst the cheapest on the market, and I imagine the tobacco was of a rough and ready variety and the were cigarettes slimmer than usual, hence the resemblance to nails. The Russian cruiser Askold, which played a part in the Gallipoli campaign, was nicknamed HMS Woodbine because of her five thin funnels. Kate (sometimes fumes but DEFINATELY smokeless) Wills From the autograph book of a V.A.D. at Crawley Down, Sussex. An entry from a wounded member of 1/24 Londons (Queens). "North south east and west, Tommy always smokes the best" Or was L/Cpl Farley being ironic? Sorry about that, I clicked the wrong button. Here is the scan I intended to post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.r.f Posted 2 November , 2003 Share Posted 2 November , 2003 PALS My grandfather always smoked a foul smelling pipe.The tobaco was Digger Honeydue.I have often wondered since if this was due to contact with the australians in ww1 ? Seeing the pictures of Turf and Woodbines,has anyone got a picture of a Digger Honeydue or even a Digger mixture tobaco packet ? If so could you scan it and put it on forum. cheers JOHN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HERITAGE PLUS Posted 2 November , 2003 Share Posted 2 November , 2003 John Digger was a brand name of John Player & Sons. It was not connected with the Aussies but with the Golddiggers of the USA. Ther were three types Flake, Shag and Honeydew Mix. Can't do Honeydew but this may suit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HERITAGE PLUS Posted 2 November , 2003 Share Posted 2 November , 2003 John And this one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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