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#59147 02/28/02 06:26 PM
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"Every war we every fought we got a whole vocabulary from," said Paul Dickson, whose book War Slang traces that phenomenon from the Civil War through the Gulf War.

What terms of that sort can we identify? [We have already talked about gringo.


#59148 02/28/02 06:31 PM
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And what words of that sort do we suspect may emerge from 9/11 and make their way into future dictionaries?

Has anyone heard wand to mean the security "wands" of metal detectors, waved over passengers' bodies, and wander as a noun meaning the airport security worker who operates the wand?




#59149 03/01/02 01:33 AM
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The only word I can think of immediately is foxhole. And yes, I've heard those things called wands. But isn't wand also that little pen-looking thingy that you sign your name with onto an electronic screen when you accept a delivery or check out of some stores--or that's used in Etch-a-Sketch, for that matter?


#59150 03/01/02 12:37 PM
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And what words of that sort do we suspect may emerge from 9/11 and make their way into future dictionaries?

Other than "9/11" itself, I have heard people using the phrase "weapons-grade" (popularized during the anthrax-in-the-mail scare) as a general adjective to describe something particularly good -- "Mmm, that's weapons-grade salsa!"


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"weapons-grade"...a general adjective to describe something particularly good

...so the lingua franca has now converted to a wartime footing? We used to use "industrial-strength" for that compliment.


#59152 03/20/02 01:06 AM
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I was curious about the etymology of gung ho, so I looked it up on Atomica. I thought some of you might be interested in the result:

gung ho or gung-ho
adj. Slang.
Extremely enthusiastic and dedicated.

[Earlier Gung Ho, motto of certain U.S. Marine forces in Asia during World War II, from Chinese (Mandarin) gōnghé, to work together (short for gōngyèhézuòshè, Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society) : gōng, work + hé, together.]

Our Living Language Most of us are not aware of it today, but the word gung ho has been in English only since 1942 and is one of the many words that entered the language as a result of World War II. It comes from Mandarin Chinese gōnghé, “to work together,” which was used as a motto by the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society. Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson (1896–1947) borrowed the motto as a moniker for meetings in which problems were discussed and worked out; the motto caught on among his Marines (the famous “Carlson's Raiders”), who began calling themselves the “Gung Ho Battalion.” From there eager individuals began to be referred to as gung ho. Other words and expressions that entered English during World War II include flak, gizmo, task force, black market, and hit the sack.





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...so the lingua franca has now converted to a wartime footing? We used to use "industrial-strength" for that
compliment.


It wasn't much of a leap. In his farewell address as US President, Eisenhower warned us to "...beware the military/industrial complex." Few seem to have listened.

Grizzly war terms: Collateral damage (we just blew away your wife and kids, your cow, your house, but missed the bunker where the bad guys might have been) Friendly fire: Oops, we just shot our own guys. Sherman's march: Kill everything, destroy everything. Less grizzly: Hooker: From General Hooker, famous for keeping prostitutes with him.


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War slang out to be divided into two categories: items widely used during the war only, and those that passed into postwar use. A "blivet" was 200 pounds of feces in a 100 pound sack. Applied to useless individuals. They were also called "warm bodies" in informal requisitions. We slept in sacks. I got a million of them.


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Hooker: From General Hooker, famous for keeping prostitutes with him.

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=250

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"Hooker: From General Hooker, famous for keeping prostitutes with him."

The Oxford English Dictionary has a quotation from 1845 using the term

But the same site said Gen. Hooker's proclivities (sic) made usage much more widespread.


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