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Joined: Mar 2001
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
I am looking for a slang synonym for "civilian." The word should be one that a Chandler tough might use. 'Civy' refers to clothing, if I'm not mistaken, and is rendered plural, 'civies.' The term can be either 'period' or contemporary. I wouldn't ordinarily be averse to a stretch, in this piece, but I don't think it would work in this particular case. Thanks.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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He was your typical John Doe; blue suit with brown shoes, that deer-in-the-headlights look and a wad of money in his right front pocket just waiting for some dip to go home with.
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Joined: Jun 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
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Nice to see you back, Insel!
It's "civvies" (two 'v's) usually on this side of the pond ...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear IP: way back in WWII, GI's called civilians "feather merchants" taken from a comic strip of the time. I think it was the same one that had "Snuffy Smith" in it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joe six-pack
One of the Jimmy's
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Faldage: isn’t a “John Doe” just a nobody or an anybody? -- I do like the sentence. Is it yours, or did I forget?
Thanks Capfka. If I ever claim to know (typed 'no') how to spell, slap me.
wwh: I like “feather merchants” but I’m not sure it has the punch I’m looking for.
Musick: “One of the Jimmys” might almost work. Can one just say “a Jimmy”? Is it at all well known?
Jackie: Abound they may, marks schmucks and suckers, but they do it both in the service and out, no?
Thanks all.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh--civvies as opposed to people in the armed forces? (I didn't get the Chandler ref.) And--it has been pointed out to me that schmuck could be very offensive. If it was to anyone, I apologize. I have no acquaintance with Yiddish, really; my associations with the word come from the movie Grumpy Old Men, where it seems to be intended as about the equivalent of "idiot".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I took Rock Island's question to be not what a Chandler type character would call a non-military person as opposed to a military one, but what he would call someone outside of the law enforcer/PI vs law breaker world. Just your normal law-abiding citizen. That's where my John Doe submission was coming from. Was I wrong, RI?
And, yes, that sentence was, AFAIK, all mine.
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