Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/313

 12 S. IV. Nov., 1918.1

NOTES AND QUERIES.

307

Blighty. Home, England.

Blighty-touch. A slight wound or injury resulting in transfer to a home hospital.

Dud. A failure. A " dud shell " is one which has been fired and has not exploded. The term is Used in any direction.

Wash-out. A complete failure.

Wallah. Fellow. A dandy is a " pukka wallah." a thief a " loose-wallah."

Chats. Lice, vermin.

Boot!. Bread.

Possie (pozzy). Jam.

Kip. Bed.

Buckshee. Extra, surplus ; a " buckshee help- ing " is an extra large plateful. From baksheesh.

Cum-sah or U-jah. Used instead of " what's- its-name." From comme f.

Napoo. Finished. From il n'y a plus.

Issue. Anything supplied by the army ; e.g., a ration cigarette is "an issue."

Stagger-juice. Any intoxicating drink.

Umpteen. Large but indefinite number.

Fed-up. Satiated.

Old sweat. Old soldier. Moaner. Equal to " pessimist " in civil life.

Grouser. Grumbler.

Char. Tea.

Gyppo. Gravy.

Cushy. A soft job.

Scrounge. To get hold of anything but in the recognized way.

Tin-hat. Shrapnel helmet.

Gasper. A cheap cigarette. Clink, or moosh. The guardroom. Bandook. Rifle.

Jankers or Paddy Doyle. C.B. or " time." Charlie. Infantryman's pack. Bubbly. A tout, or one who keeps guard when illegal games are played. Gutser. The last straw. No bonne. Useless. Windy. Nervous, frightened. Grease. Butter. Donks. Mules. In dock. In hospital. On the pegs. Under arrest. Sweating. Getting warm. Yanks, Sammies. Troops of the U.S. Diggers. -N.Z. soldiers. Jocks. Highlanders. Aussies. Australians. Chinks. Chinese labourers. Gypos. Egyptian labourers. Pork and beans. Portuguese.

A number of popular names for regiments and various working units have already appeared in ' N. &~ Q.' Here are some more :

Gloucesters. The Slashers.

Lanes (South). Excellers (XL., old 40th Foot).

Leicesters. Tigers.

Royal West Kents. Lambs.

French chasseurs. Blue-devils.

Engineers. Mudlarks.

Signallers. Buzzers.

Army Ordnance Corps. All Old Crocks, Sugar Sticks, Angels of Christ, American Oil Company.

A.S.C. Ally Sloper's Cavalry, Fred Karno's Army.

R.A.M.C. Poultice Swallowers, Linseed Lan- cers.

Loyal North Lanes. Leave Nothing Loose.

Machine Gun Corps. Suicide Club.

Durham Light Infantry. Dirty Little Imps.

Royal Irish Rifles. Rotten Irish Ragtimers.

R.E. (Postal Services). Rob Every Poor Soldier.

R. E. Wirepullers.

P.B.I. 's. Permanent Blooming Infantry.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

SIR RICHARD TEMPLE does not speak too- soon of the need of a compilation of current war slang, if only for the information of posterity. In French there exists not only M. Dauzat's book, but also a ' Dictionnai re- des termes militaires et de 1' argot poilu,' published by the Librairie Larousse.

In English " napoo " has become classic. Almost as well known are " Rude boys " (Rue du Bois) and " Bombardier Fritz >r (pommes de terre frites).

DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE.

['More Tommy's Tunes,' by F. T. Nettleing- hame, Middlesex Regiment, just published by Erskine MaeDonald, closes with a ' Glossary ' of army slang anda lietof 'Abbreviations,' containing the full titles and the army nicknames for them.]

"DOUGHBOYS" (12 S. iv. 271). ' The- Standard Dictionary ' says that " Dough- boy " is the jocular name given by the- American cavalry to the infantry from the fact that their buttons are or were of a globular shape, like doughboys or dumplings..

Fifty or sixty years ago Richard Bedford Poulden, late of the 56th Regiment, dis- tinguished himself in Australia by the- capture of a powerful aboriginal murderer- named Doughboy. Probably the name was- nnocence, and from his own, and not his- Duttons', resemblance to a dumpling.
 * iven to that individual in the days of his

A. T. M.

In Mrs. Custer's ' Tenting on the Plains, p. 516 (Low, 1888), is found the following :

" Early in the Civil War, the term was applied? to the large globular brass buttons of the infantry uniform, from which it passed by natural trans- ition to the infantry men themselves."

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Mr. R. H. Thornton in his ' American- Glossary ' gives the derivation thus :

" Primarily a dough-cake baked for sailors ; then a brass button of similar shape, worn by the infantry ; lastly, a foot soldier."

And he gives the quotation "Wasn't I glad I was not a doughboy " from a letter of General Ouster, March 28, 1867.