ARMY SLANG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 March 1940, Page 4

ARMY SLANG

By 23/762 HE New Zealand soldier who wrote ‘ homie ftorn Egypt during thé last , war and told his parents that the désért consistéd only of miles and miles and miles of Sweet Fanny Adams déscribed it fairly truthfully, but baffled his parents. All old soldiers know what Sweet Fanny Adams means; those of the néw army have probably already learned its éignificancé. It is one of the arihy’s most expressive Slang eéxpfessions, miéaning exactly nothing. What few soldiets khow is the story of its origin. ‘Fanny Adams was the tantalising beauty of the village of Alton, in Hampshire, England. Long, long ago, her body was found in the river there, but the murderer was never discovéred. From that day to this the expression " Sweet Fanny Adaéms" has meant something which did not amount to anything: Mothers and wives of the last war "were sometimes bewildered by the slang expressions which arrived in letters from ‘tthe Front. There were frequent references to "cooties,"’ to "coal boxeés;’ to * buckshee," and to "napoo." They were

typical of the slang quickly manufactured by soldiers to express the things and conditions with which they were most intimately concerned. Such words take the genesis, as a rule, from the land in which the soldier finds himself, and many of the expressions of the last war, the result of associations with Egypt and France, aré still héard to-day in ordinary conversation. Perhaps the soldiers of this war are already evolving a new set of expréssions which may oné day find their way into the dictionariés of the world. " Cooties,"’ of course, déscribed those hoftrid little vermin, also known as "grey backs," which were a constant source of irritation to the body; "coal boxes" aptly described enemy artillery shells which burst high in the air, throwing their deadly cargo of shrapnel in a wide, forward sweep. Probably the name originated bécause, when these shells burst, they left a cloud of dense, black smoke floating in the air. "Buckshée" meant something for nothing and derived from the Arabic word " Backshéesh." " Gibbit backshéesh" was the continual cry of rascally native children in Egypt as they begged for food and money from the New Zealanders and Australians. ‘""Napoo" is a violent contraction of the French phrase "il n’y en a plus," which means "that’s all there is; there isn’t any

more." Anything "napoo" was definitély and completely finished. Then theré was a strange expression, "san fairy ann," which was the nearest most of our-men got to the French "Ca ne fait rien "-it doesn’t matter. Since the outbreak of this war, a new set of slang words has beén invénted, and an enterprising British fifin has issued a booklet explaining them and the old ones. "Naffy" is a new one and refers to the N.A.A.F.L, the British Army canteen service which was statted by a British officer some years ago and has since grown to enotmous proportions. "Hate" belongs to the last war. "Jerry’s evening hate " méant that the Germans were bombarding our trenches or back areas in the evéning. "At the toot sweet" meant to get going as quickly as possible, and derived from the French "tout de suite." If a young airman writes home that orie of his friends "has goné barpoo and piled up his biis," those who read the letter will guess that this particular friend has lost his nérve and crashed his machine. "Rookie" is a new word and means a private soldier. Apparently it is the result of the influencé of American films. There are many others, many of them unprintable, like some of the lighter lyrics sung on the march by soldiers of the last war.