"20 Slang Terms From World War I"

[Moonraker]

Some I hadn't heard of.

 

"One of the subtlest and most surprising legacies of the First World War—which the United States entered more than 100 years ago, when the country declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917—is its effect on our language."

[Bombadier]

To spike a gun predates WW1 by a long time. It dates back to the time when it was possible to disable a gun by driving a spike into the touch hole. Nigel 

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

Some I hadn't heard of.

 

"One of the subtlest and most surprising legacies of the First World War—which the United States entered more than 100 years ago, when the country declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917—is its effect on our language."

 

    Still does not surpass those 2 great works on the language of the British soldier- good old Eric Partridge and his various bits on soldier slang-and for "Blighty" etc, then the even more absorbing  "Hobson-Jobson" (though there is some evidemce that some of the "Anglo-India words and phrases" were simply invented). Righty...off for a chota peg before the Memsahbib spots me.....

[pierssc]

Righty...off for a chota peg before the Memsahbib spots me.....

Talking of which, I'm surprised that "Plonk" doesn't seem to have made it across the Atlantic. 

[headgardener]

I'm not overly keen on 'list' articles like that. They're usually rather lazy journalism, and they often over-sell their rather meagre content. I've never heard many of the words or phrases in that article, and I reckon more 'in-use' phrases such as 'over the top' or 'stonk' (as in 'stonking') would have been more relevant.

[David Filsell]

Lazy and inaccurate journalism i.e. largely crap

[Acknown]

There are some interesting slang terms in this postcard in my posession (no attribution). It was sent by a soldier son, somewhere in Wiltshire, to his mother in Tisbury in Jul 17:

 

[Guest]

Lets remind ourselves of one of the classic quotes by Peter Barton in his excellent documentaries on the Somme- the description by an Australian solider of the Somme front-"Mile after mile of s***-coloured f***-all". I suspect strongly that what we have through Partidge et al is the sanitized version of trench slang- and,if there were ever an unexpurgated version, then the section of words and terms beginning with "F" would be the largest in the book. I must say that I have noticed that when a local club that professes to play some sort of sport called "Association Football" and are called "West Ham", that when adversity  comes (pretty regularly it must be said), then the English working class tradition of a vivid use of vernacular and idiom (usually physical/gynaecological) is very much alive and well-The lip-readers in the Peter Jackson  colourised documentary did,I believe,note that soldiers were saying rather unkind things about HM The King et al rather than the usual "Wipers Times" rubbish of "Lor Luv a Duck,,God bless that General Haig"

[squirrel]

I suspect strongly that what we have through Partidge et al is the sanitized version of trench slang- and,if there were ever an unexpurgated version, then the section of words and terms beginning with "F" would be the largest in the book...

Just so...one that always amuses me is when the pronunciation of Wychschate is described as "Whitesheet".

I always reckon that Tommy would have said, "Whiteshite"- it rhymes...

 

[headgardener]

10 minutes ago, squirrel said:

Just so...one that always amuses me is when the pronunciation of Wychschate is described as "Whitesheet".

I always reckon that Tommy would have said, "Whiteshite"- it rhymes...

 

 

Someone I used to know whose father won an MM there said his father always referred to it as ‘Witchita’ (pronounced in the same way as the US state).

EDIT:.....which is basically a corruption of the original Flemish pronunciation (something along the lines of ‘Vit-shay-tuh’)

Edited 13 August , 2020 by headgardener