thedrifter
10-18-05, 03:21 PM
Pass the word: How military slang makes its way into civilian culture
By C. Mark Brinkley
Marine Corps Times staff writer
If theft of government property is such a serious offense, why isn't that dork from the Taco Bell commercials in trouble BellGrande?
You know, the guy with the annoying hand gesture telling everyone that things are "good to go."
They totally stole that from the troops. Someone call the Pentagon.
Taco Bell isn't in it alone, though. ABC's "Good Morning America" has flaunted an ad campaign of its own for months, promising to leave viewers "good to go" for the day. No credit to our friends in uniform. No royalties.
Just plain old word thievery.
The phrase dates back at least to Vietnam - possibly earlier - coming from Army airborne units as an alternative to "ready to go," said Grant Barrett, an American lexicographer for Oxford University Press in New York and project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.
"Soldiers I know credibly can remember using it in the 1980s," Barrett said. "HDAS also has a citation from 1989 that uses it."
"Good to go" picked up steam in rap songs in the mid-1980s, and in 1991, author Linda Reinberg traced its origins for her book "In the Field: The Language of the Vietnam War," Barrett said. That same year, it was recorded in the "Among the New Words" column of the academic journal American Speech, he said.
And like that, poof, "good to go" was good as gone.
Toby Keith used it as a rhyme for "Mexico" in a horn-filled country ditty. It's even been reduced to an acronym - G2G - by the 14-year-old snipers we see in our online video game firefights.
But what else is new? It's not the first military catchphrase to be appropriated by Madison Avenue for advertising purposes. At least it's not a brand name yet. Right, Blockbuster? Right, Jeep?
"You just have to listen to someone talk for a while to hear something borrowed from the military," said Paul Dickson, author of "War Slang: American Fighting Words and Phrases Since the Civil War," a dictionary of popular trench-speak. "People do it all the time."
Grand theft auto
Take "Jeep," for instance. Now a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler Corp., the word became famous during World War II as the nickname for a new military utility truck.
Whether the original nickname came from "G.P." (short for general purpose), from a strange 1930s comic strip character or from a former Army general is the subject of some debate.
"Who coined [a word] is almost always impossible to find," said Dave Wilton, a former Army chemical-warfare officer turned wordsmith who runs the Internet site www.wordorigins.org. "We can usually find the first published reference."
According to his site, "Jeep" could have any of those origins. However, there's no doubt that U.S. troops made it stick.
By any other name
Then, there's "blockbuster." A popular chain of video stores, you say?
Well, your grandpa probably knew it as a World War II term for a large aerial bomb capable of wiping out a city block.
"There were just so many people serving," Wilton said. "Ex-soldiers who were talking to each other would keep using the slang they picked up in the Army."
Soon, "blockbuster" became shorthand for a smash-hit movie and, ultimately, your neighborhood video rental store.
It wasn't always that way. For hundreds of years, military jargon had a hard time finding a home in mainstream conversation because the military wasn't always a destination for the common man.
"Military slang has not traditionally been a big source of popular slang," Wilton said. "It started during the U.S. Civil War, then it kind of dies away and peaks back up during World War I."
During the Civil War, Dickson said, a "battery" consisted of two artillerymen - one aimed the cannon and the other fired. "Now, it's a baseball term, for the pitcher and the catcher."
Sometimes, words take hold purely by accident.
"They came home from World War I saying 'camouflage,'" Dickson said, referring to U.S. doughboys. "It was a French word, and there really was no English translation, so they were saying 'camouflage.' And people back here thought they were being hoity-toity. They thought the soldiers were putting on airs."
Some of the most common military words are easily recognizable - chow, MIA, AWOL, the ever-popular snafu. Even "boondocks" - now slang for a rural area - started in the trenches.
"Boondocks, that came from the Spanish-American War," Dickson said. Soldiers serving in the Philippines appropriated "boondocks," originally a Filipino word for "mountain," to mean any remote area. Although it made the dictionary in 1909, "boondocks" didn't go mainstream for another half-century, when American troops brought it home from Vietnam.
"I think the military, especially in a time of war, is part of our consciousness," Dickson said. "You really can't escape it."
Especially not these days, with around-the-clock news broadcasts and the Internet pumping the military into homes, 24-7.
"That's a military word, 24-7," Dickson said. "Basically, you're on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now, that's everywhere."
Future tense
Will today's military operations leave their hidden traces across the conversations of future generations? Thanks to a prediction by Saddam Hussein, the 1991 Persian Gulf War gave us the now-popular phrase, "the mother of all [fill in the blank]."
Current operations will likely be no different.
"I think 'embedded' will have some lasting effect, for a while at least," Wilton said. "It seems to be popping up in other contexts."
Spider-hole, originally a World War II word, made a comeback after Saddam was captured, Wilton said, but has since died off again. Whether any term will stick for the long haul is a matter of waiting and listening.
"It takes a little bit for it to come through," Dickson said. "We probably won't hear all of it for a while. But it is a constant sort of interplay. It's a powerful force on language. I think it always has been and always will be."
C. Mark Brinkley, senior writer for Lifelines, often says things he doesn't mean. He can be reached at (910) 455-8354 or via e-mail at cmark@atpco.com, if you'd like to offer him some four-letter words.
By C. Mark Brinkley
Marine Corps Times staff writer
If theft of government property is such a serious offense, why isn't that dork from the Taco Bell commercials in trouble BellGrande?
You know, the guy with the annoying hand gesture telling everyone that things are "good to go."
They totally stole that from the troops. Someone call the Pentagon.
Taco Bell isn't in it alone, though. ABC's "Good Morning America" has flaunted an ad campaign of its own for months, promising to leave viewers "good to go" for the day. No credit to our friends in uniform. No royalties.
Just plain old word thievery.
The phrase dates back at least to Vietnam - possibly earlier - coming from Army airborne units as an alternative to "ready to go," said Grant Barrett, an American lexicographer for Oxford University Press in New York and project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.
"Soldiers I know credibly can remember using it in the 1980s," Barrett said. "HDAS also has a citation from 1989 that uses it."
"Good to go" picked up steam in rap songs in the mid-1980s, and in 1991, author Linda Reinberg traced its origins for her book "In the Field: The Language of the Vietnam War," Barrett said. That same year, it was recorded in the "Among the New Words" column of the academic journal American Speech, he said.
And like that, poof, "good to go" was good as gone.
Toby Keith used it as a rhyme for "Mexico" in a horn-filled country ditty. It's even been reduced to an acronym - G2G - by the 14-year-old snipers we see in our online video game firefights.
But what else is new? It's not the first military catchphrase to be appropriated by Madison Avenue for advertising purposes. At least it's not a brand name yet. Right, Blockbuster? Right, Jeep?
"You just have to listen to someone talk for a while to hear something borrowed from the military," said Paul Dickson, author of "War Slang: American Fighting Words and Phrases Since the Civil War," a dictionary of popular trench-speak. "People do it all the time."
Grand theft auto
Take "Jeep," for instance. Now a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler Corp., the word became famous during World War II as the nickname for a new military utility truck.
Whether the original nickname came from "G.P." (short for general purpose), from a strange 1930s comic strip character or from a former Army general is the subject of some debate.
"Who coined [a word] is almost always impossible to find," said Dave Wilton, a former Army chemical-warfare officer turned wordsmith who runs the Internet site www.wordorigins.org. "We can usually find the first published reference."
According to his site, "Jeep" could have any of those origins. However, there's no doubt that U.S. troops made it stick.
By any other name
Then, there's "blockbuster." A popular chain of video stores, you say?
Well, your grandpa probably knew it as a World War II term for a large aerial bomb capable of wiping out a city block.
"There were just so many people serving," Wilton said. "Ex-soldiers who were talking to each other would keep using the slang they picked up in the Army."
Soon, "blockbuster" became shorthand for a smash-hit movie and, ultimately, your neighborhood video rental store.
It wasn't always that way. For hundreds of years, military jargon had a hard time finding a home in mainstream conversation because the military wasn't always a destination for the common man.
"Military slang has not traditionally been a big source of popular slang," Wilton said. "It started during the U.S. Civil War, then it kind of dies away and peaks back up during World War I."
During the Civil War, Dickson said, a "battery" consisted of two artillerymen - one aimed the cannon and the other fired. "Now, it's a baseball term, for the pitcher and the catcher."
Sometimes, words take hold purely by accident.
"They came home from World War I saying 'camouflage,'" Dickson said, referring to U.S. doughboys. "It was a French word, and there really was no English translation, so they were saying 'camouflage.' And people back here thought they were being hoity-toity. They thought the soldiers were putting on airs."
Some of the most common military words are easily recognizable - chow, MIA, AWOL, the ever-popular snafu. Even "boondocks" - now slang for a rural area - started in the trenches.
"Boondocks, that came from the Spanish-American War," Dickson said. Soldiers serving in the Philippines appropriated "boondocks," originally a Filipino word for "mountain," to mean any remote area. Although it made the dictionary in 1909, "boondocks" didn't go mainstream for another half-century, when American troops brought it home from Vietnam.
"I think the military, especially in a time of war, is part of our consciousness," Dickson said. "You really can't escape it."
Especially not these days, with around-the-clock news broadcasts and the Internet pumping the military into homes, 24-7.
"That's a military word, 24-7," Dickson said. "Basically, you're on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now, that's everywhere."
Future tense
Will today's military operations leave their hidden traces across the conversations of future generations? Thanks to a prediction by Saddam Hussein, the 1991 Persian Gulf War gave us the now-popular phrase, "the mother of all [fill in the blank]."
Current operations will likely be no different.
"I think 'embedded' will have some lasting effect, for a while at least," Wilton said. "It seems to be popping up in other contexts."
Spider-hole, originally a World War II word, made a comeback after Saddam was captured, Wilton said, but has since died off again. Whether any term will stick for the long haul is a matter of waiting and listening.
"It takes a little bit for it to come through," Dickson said. "We probably won't hear all of it for a while. But it is a constant sort of interplay. It's a powerful force on language. I think it always has been and always will be."
C. Mark Brinkley, senior writer for Lifelines, often says things he doesn't mean. He can be reached at (910) 455-8354 or via e-mail at cmark@atpco.com, if you'd like to offer him some four-letter words.