the word's more familiar sense of 'undemanding, easy, or secure' developed at the same time. This has stuck in the language to this day, with 'cushy job' a particularly popular phrase in the Oxford English Corpus . In North America cushy is now also used to refer to a particularly comfy sofa or other piece of furniture -- far removed, one might think, from its starting point in the mud and gore of battle. From the trenches to the street British soldiers adopted the language of their enemies just as keenly as they adapted that of their foreign allies, as is shown by the origins of the verb strafe . The German phrase Gott strafe England ('God punish England') was a common greeting in Germany from 1914 on -- 'the recognised toast throughout Hunland', as one contemporary colourfully put it. Refusing to be daunted by the threat, the term was hijacked by British soldiers, who began to use 'strafe' as a comic word to refer to any harsh punishment or attack, whether targeting the enemy ('strafing the Fritzes') or doled out by the British brass hats (high-ranking officers). The word reached the streets of Britain remarkably quickly, with the Daily Mail commenting in 1916 that ' strafe is now almost universally used', adding that 'the present writer heard a working-class woman shout to one of her offspring 'Wait till I git 'old of yer: I'll strafe yer, I will!' This should come as no surprise: life during the war was