Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/555

 12 s. ix. DEC. 3, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 457 a striking difference between the slang of the two Armies : the number of expressions denoting articles of equipment in the French and their comparative absence in the British. Considering the volume and intensity of im- precation called forth on occasions by that harmless and necessary article of equipment, the soldier's pack, one would expect to find at least one generally accepted slang term for it. Usually, however, it is referred to as " the pack," the nature of the blank varying with the intensity of the emotion concerned ; the only expression I have come acrops is " Charley," where we have a trans- ference of meaning from a natural to an artificial hump on the back. Certainly I have never discovered anyone who thought it worth while to write a poem in its praise as is the case of the French (cf. Dechelette, s.v. ' Azor '). So much then for generalities ; until the necessary material is available it would be useless and indeed undesirable to attempt further treatment of the broad aspects of the case. It will not, however, be without in- terest to set down a few remarks bearing on the conditions under which expressions were disseminated in the Army, not, of course as dogmatic assertions but as personal ob- servations in more or less isolated cases ; further, since the Western front is the only one with which I am acquainted, what follows is restricted in its application to that front. Since our troops in France were in a foreign country the difference in language separated them at once from the civil inhabitants, and so a lingua franca quickly sprang up, which, as it was intended to facilitate mutual com- prehension, was in its nature the very reverse of slang. Also, as the Territorial divisions which went overseas in the spring of 1915 re- tained throughout their individuality and had already adopted the terms of the lingua franca for the everyday necessities of life, the pre-war slang names for those same things, when they penetrated from the regular to the territorial units, already had well-established rivals to meet and in many cases never succeeded in getting a foothold ; when used it was generally in conscious imitation of the regular to induce the belief that the speaker was an " old sweat " and not because they came naturally to him. These pre-war terms, as far as my recollection goes, came into more general use after the arrival of new Army units ; as is well known, in order to make them efficient front-line troops as quickly as possible, the policy was- adopted of mixing Regular and New Army brigades in the same divisions, and it is probably due to this cause that the pre-war slang met with more success, as I believe it did, among them than among the Territorials. Of universal application we get, in the j first place, Blighty, both in its primary sense but sufficient, in the opinion of the man's " mates," to warrant the evacuation of the wounded man to England ; then the ad- jective cushy, the meaning of which is always relative to the position of the speaker and generally conveys a suggestion of (often good-humoured) envy ; and, finally, the name of that constant companion of the soldier at the front which gives a sinister meaning to the apparently harmless phrase " have a chat " ; incidentally this old slang name j had, in the north-country unit to which I belonged, a very formidable rival in the dialect word " lop." As, while the division was in action, one hardly ever saw men of units other than those of one's own brigade and especially was this the case with the infantry in many cases a slang term seems to be coined in one division and to remain for a time the ! spread until the division is out " on rest." ! Even then the communication is more often I than not indirect ; the medium would I such as H.A. batteries and D.A.C.'s, which i spent long periods in villages well behind the line and thus came in contact with men from wider sections of the front. It would appear that, whereas the French soldier seems to have resented to a certain extent the usage and coinage of Army slang terms by the papers poilu, for instance, so popular in the journalistic world, fell into disrepute among the soldiers themselves (cf. Dauzat, p. 52) the British , on the other hand, rather seems to have welcomed it. Thus it is almost certainly due to the vogue of " Boche " and " Hun " in the papers that he has adopted them ; his own name for them seems to have undergone a change during the war, the " Fritz " and the " Alleyman " of the earlier days giving place to the " Jerry " of the later period with its subtle sense of patronage, used especially during 1918, but, if I remember right, already in use after the retreat in early 1917. Whether it be
 * of England and home and in its secondary
 * meaning of a wound not severe in itself
 * property of that division, and does not
 * appear to be the semi -permanent formations