FAMOUS WAR WORDS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 169, 6 April 1918, Page 7

FAMOUS WAR WORDS

0 — SOME FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE THAT WILL STAY.

(By Professor Ernest Weekley, in the "Daily Mail.") The receding tide of every war lea\'«E a deposit of words invenwd for new urcurcstances, widowed with new meanings, or borrowed from friend and foe. It is not easy to prophesy what will be the contribution to our language of the war of the "Scrap of Paper." We may assume that the latter phrase will go down to history as German for treaty, just as "Him" and "German," "Kultur" and "savagery," will be for our grandchildren interchangeable, terms. Other girts from the enemy are' "frightfulness," translating "schrecklichkeit," officially used of the Louvain bestialities, ond the comic "hate" and "strafe." "Spurlos verzonken" is too Teutonic for adoption, but will survive as an ironic comment on thju canting "freedom of the seas," a phrase coined just after the Lusitania massacre. If pride of birth survives the great upheaval, may imagine that "Came over with the Conqueror" will tako second place, to "One of the Contemptibles." When the Kaiser spoke of the "verachtliehe kleine armee" ho scarcely realised that he was enriching the hated language with the woixl destined to become ; ts proudest epithet. The psychologist will recognise in the character of our borrowings from German that incurably humorous scorn for the enemy which lias 'always made the British soldier invincible in the long run. There is more than accident in the contrast between our homely "bus" for an aeroplane, "The Trade" for the submarine service, "over the top" for the supreme test of manhood, and the pretentious tomfoolery of the "Siegiriond line," "storm troops," "the mailed fist," "iron will to victory," "steel-hard resolution," and the rest of the Kaiser's rhetorical ironmongery.

Of our own coinages the earliest and most expressive is ''profiteer, 1 ' for one who levies blackmail on the nation's need. Some think that "munitioneer" runs it fairly close. "Uaby-killer"—Ger-man naval or aeronautical hero—dates from the bombardment of Scarborough. Many words have taken a new colour from war time. It will bo long before "hoard" and "queue" cease to evoke the image of sugar or margarine; while "lank" ana even "Tankmauship" have become permanent 'elements of our' military vocabulary. "Conscientious," 'Conchy," and the grotesquely-formed "pacifist" stand a tair chance of joining "profiteer." Our chivalrous Allies have given us "barrage," replacing "curtaiiirfire." Its usual French meaning is weir. "Napoo," already used for "inconclusive by eminent writers, is an attempt at "il n'y a plus." ! "Bpche" for "Alboche," a slang perversion of "Allcmand," was a familiar word in tho Latin Quarter tliirty years ago. It will become an invective term in English, just as the epithet "ruddy Bolshevik" has already caught the ear in a street row. The most famous of war words, "Blighty," ig borrowed from the Indian troops. It is the Hindustani adjective "bilati," from Arabic "wilayat," government, from "wali," governor, and has long been applied to anything connccted with Britain.

Nor do the Sahibs use tho "balaitee panee" (soda water) when they are thirsty.—Kipling, "The Smith Administration," 1887.

But the chief effect of the war on the language will be in metaphor. We already call an unexpected visit a "raid," a determined effort a "push," our sanctum a "dug-out," and the lady of the house the "Food Controller." When the boys como hpmo they will speak, and their children will learn, a figurative language which will colour the King's English as it has not been coloured since the Conquest.