Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-20
THE WARS VERBAL BEoUEST
Host Of Vivid New Words, From an
Amazing Variety Of Sources,
Clamor for Entrance Into
the Dictionaries

''''I'NN"' thdJ shepJClSll ioi
wisdom. are inclined to doubt that the world
after the cQnvusion of war has changed as
much as the idealists and optimists said it
would.
Not so the philologists. They will admit
IT need be, that selfshness dominates human
motives as of yore that civilization is not
purged OF brutality and that the millennium
is still far distant. But they will insist
and rightly-that mankind especially that
portion of it to which the English tongue is
native, does not speak precisely the same
language it did in July, 1914.
If our habits haven't changed, our vo-
cabulary certainly has. Hundreds of words
virtually unknown five and half years ago
are now in common parlance Youngsters
enrich their speech with ''camouhagc" One
doesn't have to be n highbrow to call a
flock of airplanes an "escadrillc,' nor
lowbrow to hail a sailor as a "gob.
A NTE- -BELLUM English, with its draft
upon all the languages of the earth, was
a mosaic. But its structure was simplicity
itself compared with the contemporary
article.
Slang is ephemeral and often purely local,
The American who cries ''I'll say so" to-
day, CALCULATED "Sure, Mike" some years
ago. and five years hence he will be en-
phatic with some altogether different locu-
tion. The Jersey shore of the Delaware is
Spain only to a Philadelphian. Highly
specialized phrases and provincial argot of
these varieties do not get into the diction
aries.
The war born words, however, are of an
other quality. They will be duly listed in
pretentious volumes. Savants will explore
quaint and picturesque speech origins. They
will also in many instances run straight into
enigmas.
1t is exceedingly difficult to explain how
the popularized "doughboy'' originated.
The Oxford Dictionary declares it to be a
dumping. AS the American army was by
no means exclusively composed of fat men,
the source of the appellation remains mys
terious.
One scholar rather unconvincingly traces
back the word to the large globular brass
buttons worn on infantry uniforms during
the Civil War, with the deduction that a
sailor recognized their resemblance to dump
lings and transferred the word to army pri
Yates. Maybe and maybe not. AT any
rate, the word was army slang before the
war broke out. Now it is unquestionably
good American English and has travelled far
beyond the mere confines of argot.
Cob is another puzzle. 1t is obviously
said to be contraction of the Chinese word
"gobshite,' first used on the American
Asiatic naval station. Nobody really knows
the truth. Everybody however is fully
aware that the navy men infinitely prefer the
word to the sentimental Jackie
Epithets cannot be popularized by
''drives." Sammy" had no staying power
whatever. 'Yanks' and ''doughboys" tri
umphantly superseded it.
TATJTRAJT,V tha inAuaDnn ,f E,oroI,
~ over our war-m made vocabulary was pro-
found. To that tongue we owe "camou-
hage," obscurely associated with a French
theatrical slang word for make up We
are indebted to our Gallo allies also for
'barrage," for ''chandelle," 'rafale,''
''glissade' and "vrile," all descriptive of
airplane antics; for 'ace," characterizing
star aviator and most of all for "boche''
Maurice Donnay learnedly insists that
boche is made up of the French word for
German, "Allemand,' and "caboche,"
thieves cant for head. A telescoping proc
ess gives the vivid monosyllable.
"Poilu," a definite accession to the Ian
guage, has been tracked back to Balzac, who
uses 'poleux" in a somewhat derogatory
sense. The armies of the republic changed
the spelling while retaining the aliusion to
vigorous hairiness, adopted the word in an
affectionate significance and standardized its
employment in the barracks. Its interna-
tional career came with the war.
CHARACTERISTIC enough, Eng
~ lish slang became only partly American
lied during the conflict, and the same NAV
be said of our own distinctively native terms
. London was amazed by 'attaboy," found out
what it meant and then made little effort
to annex it. Similarly, we never ques-
toned Britain's possession of "blighty,' al
though we speedily learned what it sicnified
to our ally.
The word propounds another problem.
The best authorities are wont to believe that
it is a corruption of the Hindu "bhilati. ;,
meaning to the British soldiers ''home," or
England. Our fondness for flag (cipa :
rette) is somewhat facetious. 1t is a handy
word, but often the American prefers a
more formal vocabulary, as, for instance.
when he says elevator for lift
"Anzacs," however, We adopted lust ms
freely as the English did. 1t is singular ex
ample of deliberately made -up word which
took instant hold. The coming took place
at Gallipoli in the employment of the capi
tai letters of Australian anG New Zealand
army corps.
Germany gave to the war dictionary
"schrecklichkeit, 'spurlos versenkt, -
'Stra1e, punish, anu uluSC Qamaglngly of
all, "kultur." To Russia, much against
our inclinations, we are indebted for Boil
sheviki,. which simply means belonging to
the majority" and Mensheviki, belonging
| to the minority" and Soviet"
| OTHER words, drawn from a variety of
~ sources destined to be incorporated in
English American dictionaries of the future,
are "marraine, 'embusque," Glow visi
bility," "over the top ''dud, - "camion ;,
"massif," mandatory" "can" Ia deptb
bomb), "slacker, - 'paravane," "whippet, y
"zero hour" "blimp" "Hooverize" and
"buddy."
The list could be formidably extended,
When the sitting processes are completed il
is likely that a majority of the phrases will
find home in works devoted to the alpha i
betical arrangement of our fearfully and
wonderfully made English.