British Compiling Dictionary to Preserve Slang of Tommy

Words and Phrases Used by English Soldiers in the Trenches to Be Placed in Museum—Seek History of Words

St. Petersburg Times, 19 November 1921

Although this article isn't specifically about the CEF, it has been tagged as such to keep it with other First World War material.

London, No. 18.—An effort is to be made to preserve in the British museum the war time slang of the British Tommy. For the benefit of the students of the great war a dictionary is in the course of compilations dealing with the many words and phrases born of the war.

The secretary of the imperial war museum has issued a request for notes on the subject giving the slang terms used in the British army, together with the meaning of the words and, if possible, their derivation.

Much of this slang was a legacy of the old regular soldier at Mons and originated for the most part in the east. The most popular and most romantic and sentimental was "blighty." That is now almost universally used. It was derived from the Hindustani and means home.

However, the history of such expressions as "kip," "posh," "wangle," "eyewash," "swank," "square pushing" or "wind-up" is not yet written, and the secretary aforesaid is now carefully collating his data. In his request for data the secretary naively suggests "that, of course, many of the army terms are not polite and hardly fit for publication."

As a rule, however, the slang of the British Tommy has a much more wholesome derivation than most of the French "argot les tranches."

One Trench Language

Perhaps the most astounding thing about the army slang of the British is the generality of its uses. Those knowing Great Britain know that the dialect of no two counties is alike. The accent of the Lancashiremen is as different as possible from that of his neighbor, the Yorkshireman, while the troops from Northumberland were completely and wonderfully unintelligible to the rest of the British Army. Many of the Welsh regiments, too, could speak no other language, but their native Welsh. Yet the language of the trench was the same for all.

To all a "brass hat" was a staff field officer. True, the Scotsman put two extra "rs" into it, and the Northumbrian, as he is wont, "gutturalled" the "r" and made it appear like—well, certainly nothing which could be printed.

Some of the examples are as follows:

Some Hindu, Too.

QUICK LINKS