Hey all;
I'm writing a feature on military influence on the English language (which from day to day experience I'd describe as somewhat less than BZ) and thought I'd solicit some ideas from these parts.
As part of the story, I'm going to be interviewing Graeme Donald, a Kiwi whose books include "Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis: The Military Origins of Everyday Words and Phrases", and besides the usual suspects like commando, bite the bullet and such, he's tracked words such as 'avant garde', 'heard it through the grapevine' and 'deadline' to military origins.
The book is heavy on American and British words and phrases, so I thought I'd toss it out here to see if anyone can think of any words that originated in Canadian military use that have since been adopted outside the military – or maybe are being used now and ought to be in future. As an example, phrases like 'bin rat' are good and easily understandable, but of limited utility as there's no logistics branch to deal with in civilian life. There must be a few out there that I'm not thinking of, and most of the words on this site's glossary are either technical acronyms (BMQ, LAV, FOB) or specialized slang with limited general application.
I'll bounce any good ones off him when I speak to him if anyone has any ideas.
Thanks
I'm writing a feature on military influence on the English language (which from day to day experience I'd describe as somewhat less than BZ) and thought I'd solicit some ideas from these parts.
As part of the story, I'm going to be interviewing Graeme Donald, a Kiwi whose books include "Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis: The Military Origins of Everyday Words and Phrases", and besides the usual suspects like commando, bite the bullet and such, he's tracked words such as 'avant garde', 'heard it through the grapevine' and 'deadline' to military origins.
The book is heavy on American and British words and phrases, so I thought I'd toss it out here to see if anyone can think of any words that originated in Canadian military use that have since been adopted outside the military – or maybe are being used now and ought to be in future. As an example, phrases like 'bin rat' are good and easily understandable, but of limited utility as there's no logistics branch to deal with in civilian life. There must be a few out there that I'm not thinking of, and most of the words on this site's glossary are either technical acronyms (BMQ, LAV, FOB) or specialized slang with limited general application.
I'll bounce any good ones off him when I speak to him if anyone has any ideas.
Thanks
