Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/85

 i28.v.MA K cH,i9i9.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

79

marble tablet inserted in it, has within the last five years been erected by the Govern- ment to the memory of S. D. Wilson, near the spot where he was killed while on duty.

PENBY LEWIS.

WAR SLANG (12 S. iv. 271, 306, 333; v. 18). MB. SPABKE'S list is good, but there are two words at least from which he has not extracted the full service meaning.

The first is " rumble," to discover, to find out or to detect in any trickery. Thus a malingerer is " rumbled " by the medical officer.

The second is " sweating," which MB. SPABKE associates with the game of hide- and-seek. It is, however, more frequently used in the favourite game " house," where each player buys a card on which are printed three rows of figures. Counters bearing other figures are extracted from a bag, and the players cover up the numbers that appear on their respective cards as the numbers are called out. When any player has completed any horizontal line in this way, he calls " House," and takes the pool (the money paid for the cards). When he needed one number only to complete a line, he was " sweating on " that number. It is easy to understand why the prospect of winning a substantial sum causes him literally to sweat.

Thus " sweating " has come to mean "to be within an ace of securing " or "to have a reasonable hope of attaining." A corporal may be said to be " sweating on ' sergeant, that is, he has reasonable hope of shortly becoming one.

In connexion with leave it is frequently

employed to indicate prospects. Thus

" Had your leave ? " " No, but I am

sweating," or " No, I am not even sweating.'

A. J. C. AITKEN.

My impression is that "fed up" was brought home by the soldiers from th( Boer war of 1899-1902 ; and to the best o: my recollection they were said to have acquired the expression from the Australian troops.

I quote the following from some interesting notes on war slang contributed by Mr. E. B Osborn to The Illustrated London News o Jan. 4 :

" ' Snaffer,' which means please don't troubl (almost the equivalent of the Russian Nitchevo] is derived from the polite ' a ne fait rien ' of th farmer's wife when Mr. Atkins apologized fo inflicting some trifling inconvenience. But napoo of course, is the indispensable and ineyitabl dissyllable ; it is to be heard a hundred times

ay, and always in a different sense. It i hameleon of words, taking its colouring of ignificance from varying circumstances. It is a* orruption of a corrupt abbreviation of JV'j/ en p'ws, which means II n't/ en a plus (that's the- ast of it)."

Tommy Atkins calls a route-march a. rout-march." I have often heard officers n the old army adopt the mispronunciation,, quite as a matter of course. If it is general, t would seem to be a case of evil com- munications corrupting good manners.

J. R. H.

" Gypos " (12 S. iv. 07) is meant for Egyptian army. The R.A.M.C. used to fce- jalled " poultice wallahs," not " twallowers " ibid.). C. G.
 * Gyppies," the Army term for the-

Gambia.

"DINKUM" (12 S. v. 7). The word was used by my men in Palestine when they referred to Australians. They would say, ' A company of Dinkums have pitched eamp near here during the night," or, " The Dinkums have struck camp and gone."

E. W. G., R.A.F.

"CAMOUFLAGE" (12 S. v. 42). MB. WAINEWBIGHT will find further interesting- remarks anent the derivation of this much- discussed anglicized word in The Globe of Nov. 8, 1917, and The Daily Express of Nov. 24 and 27 of the same year.

CECIL CLABKE.

Junior Athenaeum Club.

GOLDSWOBTHY AS A PLACE-NAME (12 S.

v. 39). Goldsworthy (or Goldworthy) is a small hamlet in the parish of Parkham, near Bideford, North Devon. It was for- merly the seat of the Gay family.

R. PEABSE CHOPE.

CLAY BALLS AS CHBISTMAS COLLECTING BOXES (12 S. v. 39). A Christmas box was a box generally made of earthenware, with a slit in it through which the money given at Christmas was passed into the box. It was carried about by apprentices and others to receive gifts, which were hoarded up, and could only be got out by breaking the box. Allusions to these Christmas boxes are to be found in seventeenth- century writers. For example :

" Like the Christmas earthen boxes of appren- tices, apt to take in money, but he restores none till hee be broken, like a potter's vessel, into many shares." H. Browne, ' Map of the Microcosme,' 1642, sig. c. 6 b.

Aubrey, in his ' Introduction to the Survey and Natural History of the North