SOLDIER SLANG.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1860, 3 August 1918, Page 4

SOLDIER SLANG.

EXAMPLES FROM AMERICA. THE “DOUGH-BOYS.’' The British mind may have boon impressed by hearing' an American infantryman referred to as a “dough-boy/' The term is universal in the American army. A correspondent of the Sunday Times says it probably originated during the Civil War, when Sherman’s foot(roops marched through dough-like mud during a long part of their famous journey to the sea. To the American soldier the cavalryman is a “leather-seat,” the doctor is “pills,” the chaplain is not the “padre”—-but “Holy Joe,” the commanding officer (no matter what his age) is “the old man,” the cook is oftener “beans” than anything else, although his nicknames are legion. A girl who will flirt is a “chicken” in the vocabulary of the light-spoken American youth. A very popular song put “warm baby” into the American language with the naming of a bright and vivacious girl, very likely of perfectly good character. A premonition to the American soldier is a “hunch”; to try to harm a man or a movement is to give him or it (he “doublecross,” which is about the same as “hoodoo”: to “can” anything or any man is to make an utter end of him or it, from a man to a presidential policy. The Kaiser, for instance, must he “canned.”

GERMAN “BONEHEADS.” In the judgment of the American soldier the German people have been fooled, and thus have laid themselves open to be called boneheads,” “boobs,” or “simps”—the latter being obviously short for “simpleton.” The Kaiser, the American soldier thinks, should “get the hook” —that is. bo pulled off the stage of life as unworthy performers are pulled off theatrical stages during American amateur nights, by means of hooks thrusl about their waists by disgusted stage managers standing in the wings. The man who cheats or does not pay his share to the American soldier is a “cheap skate,” while the man who is too ready to be fooled is an “easy mark,” because he is likely in a crowd or game of cards to lose his “maznma,” which means money; in other words, he cannot keep his “bucks,” or, definitely, dollars. When the strategists have planned a great campaign foy victory, the American soldier will say gratefully that they have “doped it out”; if they miss their point he may remark that they have “spilled' the beans”; if the Germans are defeated they will “fade away,” or “beat it” back to their own trenches —or to Berlin if they really wish to please American “dough-boys,” who are over here because they did not like the Kaiser’s “line of talk.” They think him a real “gink,” which once meant a cross-eyed person, sure to firing bad luck', then meant a “hoodoo,” and now means any person who deserves lo ho suppressed.

“23” FOR WILHELM. They are full of “pep,” or energy, these American soldiers, and intend lo “put one over on” the German fighting-man. They believe V illiehu’s vision of conquest to have lioon a mere “pipe-dream,” which he never can realise, and that he should be given “23,” or the good-night signal, and told emphatically forthwith to “skiddoo,” “evap,” or leave 1 the throne. When they praise a man they “boost” him, when they defame-him they are “knockers,” and their remarks are “knocks.” A soldier who is fond of “knocking” never will he sufficiently popular to be called the company’s “candy-kid.” Most of them will declare that when fate assigned him to that company it “handed it a lemon.” They are likely, military regulations permitting, to ask that man to “go while the going is good.” The man who drinks too much in the American army is known as a “lusher,” who . gets “soused,” or “stewed,” or “corned,” or gels a “jag,” or gets “lit-up.” I might continue these erudite reflections almost indefinitely. I love the American soldier; I have travelled much with him; I know his language, and it misses no gradation of expression. But I fancy that the editor of the Sunday Times by this time has had enough to make him “holler ‘Help!’ ” To assist in making “Fritz” do that is the ambition of my editorial friend’s “doughbov.”