Military slang reflects views on rank, arm of service, race, gender, and hostility, and, through the use of acronyms and catchwords, marks soldiers from civilians and helps distinguish insiders from outsiders. Reviewing his own experience in WW I, Henri Barbusse wrote of how language ‘made up of a mixture of workshop and barrack slang, and patois, seasoned with a few newly-coined words, binds us, like a sauce, to the compact mass of men who, for several seasons, have emptied France to concentrate in the north-east’. More recently, in Dress Gray Lucian Truscott described a military language: ‘fuelled by cigar smoke and mess hall coffee, greasy fatigues and scuffed boots, afternoons spent ghosting at the motor pool … full of aphorisms and clichés discarded by others, which [take] on new life and meaning in the coarse texture of a sergeant's timing and delivery’.
Soldiers favour a collective nickname, sometimes descriptive like the Roman mulus marianus (Marius' mule), the French poilu (hairy, meaning virile as well as unkempt), the WW I American ‘dough foot’ (from his muddy feet) and ‘doughboy’, or the more recent ‘grunt’ (from the sounds emitted while marching heavily laden). The German soldier, across several generations, was a landser, and his British opponent a Tommy (see Atkins, Tommy), more recently a ‘Tom’, or the slightly deprecating ‘squaddie’ or ‘swabbie’, like the French bidasse. To their officers soldiers were often their ‘boys’ or ‘children’. Old FM von Schwerin was killed at Prague in 1757 rallying his regiment with a shout of ‘Heran mein Kinder!’, while at Rezonville/Gravelotte in 1870 Bazaine trotted his horse ahead of a shaky battalion, saying: ‘Allons, mes enfants, suivez votre maréchal.’
Civilians are at best dismissed as ‘civvies’ or pékins. At worst they are slackers and profiteers, like the embusqués pilloried by French trench newspapers, or the mythical American character Jody who avoided conscription and got the draftee's job, car, and girl. US army cadence calls, used on the march, are known as ‘Jody calls’, and often explore Jody's fate when the draftee returns. The front-line soldier resents others who do not share his danger. He may call them Ettappenschweine (lines of communication pigs), ‘remfs’ (rear echelon mother-fuckers), or ‘ponti’ (people of no tactical importance). A German soldier assigned to administrative duties was a Schreibstubenhengst (office stallion), and his French counterpart a buveur d'encre (ink drinker). American rear echelon personnel were also the rhyming (in American) ‘clerks and jerks’ or ‘chairborne rangers’. Members of the French train des equipages were hussards à quatre roues (four-wheeled hussars), and British infantrymen unkindly maintained that the initials of the Royal Army Service Corps really stood for ‘run away someone's coming’.
The graduation of nicknames within armies is a subculture in itself. French recruits were Marie-Louises (after Napoleon's empress), the surprisingly durable bleus (from National Guard blue as opposed to old army white), or, especially if ungainly, jeanjeans. Old soldiers were briscards because they wore brisques, long-service stripes. Infantrymen in general were fantassins or biffins, line infantry were lignards or, from their red trousers, culs rouges (red arses), while their chasseur comrades were chasse pattes. Cuirassiers were variously coquillards, gros frêres or (more cautiously) gros lolos; the Chasseurs d'Afrique were chass d'aff; spahis, from their red uniforms, were cavaliers rouges; marine infantry and gunners respectively marsouins and bigorres. The disciplinary battalions of infanterie legère d'Afrique were joyeux, zephyrs, or zefs, while Zouaves were zouzous.
A gunner has been a ‘cannon cocker’ or ‘redleg’ to the Americans, somewhat bitterly a ‘dropshort’ or ‘long-range sniper’ to the British, and bumskopf (bang head) to the Germans. Non-airborne personnel are ‘straight-legs’ or simply ‘legs’ to US paratroopers, ‘crap-hats’ to the British, and culs de plomb (lead arses) or poireaux (leeks) to the French.
Weapons were often given affectionate nicknames, like ‘Katyusha’ (little Katie) for the Soviet multi-barrelled rocket launcher, ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ for the Vulcan revolving cannon (thus ‘Dragon's Lair’ for the AC-47 gunship), and Rosalie for the French Lebel bayonet. Rosalies also had the descriptive nicknames vide-boche and tue-boche, though a coup de baionnette (bayonet thrust) had marital as well as martial implications. Avoidance joking encouraged WW I British infantrymen to call a heavy shell, which burst in thick black smoke, a ‘coal box’ or (from the black boxer) ‘Jack Johnson’; to a German it was a Schwarze Maria; and to a Frenchman a gros noir.
Until recently a British soldier might call his rifle a bundook, reflecting the widespread raiding of Indian terminology which included jildi (hurry, quickly), charpoy (bed), bint (female), and char (tea.) Adding wallah defined a trade, as in char-wallah for teaboy or dhobi-wallah for launderer. A special affinity with India could be implied by using log as in badmash-log (bad people) or gora-log (working-class whites) as opposed to sahib-log. The French borrowed from their own colonial experience to nickname the commanding officer caïd or kebir.
The commander might be the chef to a German and ‘the old man’ to a British or American soldier, regardless of age. The regimental sergeant major was the spiess to a German, and a warrant officer le juteaux to a Frenchman. A company sergeant major or first sergeant was the chien de compagnie in France and ‘top kick’ or ‘first shirt’ to an American. The canine analogy produced chien du régiment for regimental adjutant and ‘orderly dog’ for orderly officer, as well as officier chien for martinet. Slang for rank might reflect the nature of its badge, as in ‘butterbar’ for a US second lieutenant or ‘bird-colonel’ for a full colonel.
A British conscript might keep a ‘chuff chart’ to mark the gradual expiry of his service. His French counterpart, looking forward to la quille (demobilization), might enquire ‘combien tu pête?’ (how many farts left in you?) to receive the response, from a man with ten days left to serve, ‘je pête dix!’ A newly arrived conscript in Vietnam was a ‘cherry’ (virgin) or FNG (fucking new guy). A British Territorial would once (though rarely now) have rejoiced in the nickname ‘terrier’ but been less pleased with ‘weekend warrior’. To regular soldiers' assertions that he was a ‘stab’ (stupid TA bastard) he might retort that they were simply ‘arabs’ (arrogant regular army bastards). Other acronyms are official, like ‘Awol’ (absent without leave), Flak (Fleiger Abwehr Kanone), Pak (Panzer Abwehr Kanone), ‘fiscal’ (fire support co-ordination line), and ‘feba’ (forward edge of battle area), and unofficial, like ‘fubar’ (fouled up beyond redemption/recognition), snafu (situation normal, all fouled up), and ‘buff’ (big ugly fat fucker) for the B-52 bomber.
Food and drink feature prominently in slang. A German mobile field cooker was Gulaschkanone (goulash cannon). To the French, bidoche (meat) easily became barbaque (bad meat) or even tinned meat, called singe (monkey) from its supposed origin. To the British soldier corned beef is ‘corned dog’ and the infamous ‘cheese, processed’ is ‘cheese, possessed’ (just as ‘drawers, cellular’ are inevitably ‘drawers, Dracula’). The allegedly alcoholic propensities of German junior NCOs produce Schnapser for gefrieter and Oberschnapser for obergefrieter.
Nicknames for an enemy often reflect a sneaking regard. If the German were boches to the French, they were ‘Fritz’ or ‘the Hun’ to the British. The Vietcong soldier was ‘Victor Charlie’, simply ‘Charlie’, and sometimes ‘Sir Charlie’. Even the racist ‘gook’ had a warm derivative: a notorious and much-shelled sniper at Khe Sanh was called ‘Luke the Gook’. The British soldier's propensity for mispronunciation led to enemy commanders receiving unlikely names: Sang-ko-lin-sin, whose troops defended the Taku Forts in 1860, was popularly believed to be an Irishman called Sam Collinson.
Swear words are interwoven throughout military slang, doing duty for most parts of speech. Glenn Gray suggested that ‘The most common word in the mouths of American soldiers had been a vulgar expression for sexual intercourse.’ A WW II British driver announced as follows that his truck would run no more: ‘the fucking fucker's fucked.’ A German linked briefly overstaying his leave for carnal pleasure with receipt of dicken (confinement in the guardroom), writing on its wall: ‘Halb stunde ficken-drei tage dicken.’ This sort of thing was all too much for a Belgian priest, who wrote: ‘I have looked it up phonetically in my little English dictionary (fah-ke) and find, to my surprise, that the word “fake” means “false, unreal or not true to life.” Why the soldiers should refer to us in this way is difficult to understand, and yet everywhere one hears them talk of “fake Belgium” and “fake Belgians” …’.
— Richard Holmes
