A bit of an odd one this week. How many well known phrases/sayings have got military origins? The more random the better!
Here's a few to start:
The 'Humpty Dumpty' nursery rhyme is sometimes claimed to have been about a cannon recorded as used from the church of St Mary-at-the-Wall by the Royalist defenders in the siege of 1648. Opinions vary on this one though.
'It's so cold it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey' - One source claimed that this was a reference to the brass triangle racks used to store cannon balls on ships, and the way that the racks would shrink in extreme cold weather, making the balls fall off it. It has since been disproven on several grounds.
'To give someone the cold shoulder.' - This comes from the age of chivalry, where knights would offer fellow knights their hospitality whenever it was required, food, a bed for the night, etc. If the guest outstayed their welcome, the hosts would serve them a cold cut of poor meat, as an indication that it was time to move on.
I guess you were listening to Radio 2 yesterday evening then, that or it is a massive coincidence that Lisa Tarbuck was talking about the very same thing.
There must be bazillions...a few off the top of my head:
Bite the bullet
Swinging the lead
Run the gauntlet
Deadline
Three sheets to the wind
Turning a blind eye
Chance your arm
Baling out
The Full Monty
Not enough room to swing a cat
...
Flash in the pan - nothing too serious or someone who promises something or isnt too serious.... if you poder in your pan flashged but didnt ignite the main charge nothing much happened/ what you were expecting didnt happen.
Going off half cocked - again military use of musket going off half cocked meant the hammer wasnt pulled back all the way and failed to produce a spark.
Calling the shots.... could be reference to military spotters for snipers or artillery he who calls the shots knows whats going on
bite the bullet.... take whatever is coming to you (lead bullets were sometimes used to bite on when bite were being cut off (Supposedly)
Take the flack, says it all really.... in a bomber on a bomb run you had to take the flak.....
Give it the whole 9 yards ...giving it a full belt of ammo for a machine gun
I Suppse one of the earliest is: the die is cast
Just remembered some more ;D
Hoisted on your own Petard
Everyting is above board - nautical - you can see the whole crew there is no sneaky pirate horde hiding below decks
Know the ropes
Decimate - roman system of killing one in ten
Hold the fort
Jerry cans
Snorkers
Egg banjo (egg butty)
ts amazing how to begin with I couldnt think of any then kapow they all come flooding back
:-[ a bit sad really
I have been known to use the term SNAFU to explain how things are going horribly wrong! ;D
QuoteI have been known to use the term SNAFU to explain how things are going horribly wrong!
Ditto - and also FUBAR ;D
Another string to your bow (having a spare bow string)
I'd keep that under your hat (keeping your bow string dry and therefore taught)
A right cock-up (putting the arrow onto the bowstring 90 degress out, therefore causing the arrow to fly off at an angle)
Toeing the line (I believe from the parade ground where the troops put their toes on a line to form a straight line)
Freelance work/freelancers (literally knights with lances that were free for hire)
Damp squib (I believe an artillery expression of the black powder period)
Couldn't hit a barn door (a whole variety of sayings along this line)
Cold shoulder - interesting, but military?
cold shoulder supposedly nightly thigumybob... knichts would move around and take up residence in anothers court... they would be fed, watered and generally looked after, however some would out stay their welcome, instead of nice cuts of meat they would get cold meat of the not particualrly tender variety.... not sure of this though is shoulder a worse cut than any other... we need a butcher! ::)
Quote from: NTM on 10 August 2010, 08:23:52 AM
I guess you were listening to Radio 2 yesterday evening then, that or it is a massive coincidence that Lisa Tarbuck was talking about the very same thing.
It's a massive conicidence! I'd had this one on the side for a while, then there was an etymologist on the late night Radio 5 program a couple of weeks ago, which got me thinking about it again.
Quote from: FierceKitty on 10 August 2010, 11:29:08 AM
Cold shoulder - interesting, but military?
Knights, horses, stabby, stabby, choppy, choppy. It's close enough.
8)
Quote
Going off half cocked - again military use of musket going off half cocked meant the hammer wasnt pulled back all the way and failed to produce a spark.
Freelance work/freelancers (literally knights with lances that were free for hire)
I'd keep that under your hat (keeping your bow string dry and therefore taught)
Decimate - roman system of killing one in ten
Everything is above board - nautical - you can see the whole crew there is no sneaky pirate horde hiding below decks
A right cock-up (putting the arrow onto the bowstring 90 degress out, therefore causing the arrow to fly off at an angle)
I'm liking these ones!
8)
Loose cannon
Have a decko.
The Balloon Has Gone UP
Crossed the Rubicon
Quote from: SV52 on 12 August 2010, 05:08:46 PM
Have a decko.
Is that as in 'Have a break, have a decko'?!
:D
From Baghdad: "I wait until the tempreature drops down to 110F before I go out running later in the day" ... I found myself saying this earlier this week when discussing keeping fit in Iraq and realised what I had said! Surreal.
Quote from: Dave Fielder on 12 August 2010, 07:31:47 PM
From Baghdad: "I wait until the tempreature drops down to 110F before I go out running later in the day" ... I found myself saying this earlier this week when discussing keeping fit in Iraq and realised what I had said! Surreal.
Are there many wargamers out there? We send packages out every now and then to BFPO's.
Only me that I know of ... there are approx 50,000 US forces here but not sure whether they game or not! Love the thought of getting packages, but BFPO 684 can be slow and tortuous as I am here as a single Brit in the midst of US Forces. Tea bags are always well received!! ;D
Quote from: Dave Fielder on 13 August 2010, 10:27:51 AM
Only me that I know of ... there are approx 50,000 US forces here but not sure whether they game or not! Love the thought of getting packages, but BFPO 684 can be slow and tortuous as I am here as a single Brit in the midst of US Forces. Tea bags are always well received!! ;D
I'll put teabags on the Requests lists!
Couldn't you set up a game with a small town, get yourself a load of insurgents, and use it for tactical/strategic training ops?!
The balloon goes up (impending trouble)
From WWI observation balloons which were often sent up to spot for artileery barrages.
To have a field day (easy achievement, enjoyment)
Military maneuvres and training in open fields. Far preferred by soldiers than the usual hard or boring duties they were expected to undertake.
Parthian / Parting shot (accepted malprop.) (unpleasant remark before leaving, givin no chance to reply)
Obvious this one, from the famous tactic of the Parthian horse archers of shooting while riding away.
Pear shaped (something not quite right)
RAF slang first recorded in the 1960's as a reference to pilots not quite achieving the the acrobatic forms such as neat loops and so on. Disputed meaning
By chance i found this one - not sure of the truth of it though:
Sailors would check their rum had not been watered down by pouring it onto gunpowder and setting light to it, from where the term "proof" originates.
:D
Quote from: Maenoferren on 22 August 2010, 09:41:31 AM
By chance i found this one - not sure of the truth of it though:
Sailors would check their rum had not been watered down by pouring it onto gunpowder and setting light to it, from where the term "proof" originates.
:D
Indeed, i beleive this is true.
I think it was still the measure used in the UK up to some time int he 1980's!
The whole nine yards may have referred to a ship of the line carrying full sail: three masts, three yards on each, the maths isn't hard.
I think " The whole nine yards" refers to the the length of a belt of ammunition for the US bomber gunners - giving them the whole nine yards meant shooting off a LOT of bullets :D
All gone pear-shaped - I heard that that referred to what happened when a military glider landed bandly.
Not a saying as such but 'repentence' I gather comes from Roman square-bashing when the legion was commanded to turn through 180 degrees.
Wargame military phrase used frequently in the Liverpool club - "You spawny get!" This refers to an unlikely but absolutely necessary dice roll.
DP ;D
'With the greatest respect - you bast**d!' Common phrase at our club when someone roll amazing dice!
'Whole nine yards' is the length of the ammo belt in a Spitfire.
'It's all gone pear shaped' is about early tv pictures when the valves weren't working, (might also apply to radar)
I haven't got a brass razoo
Australian slang for worthless Turkish money during WWI. Also possibly used by the Aussies in Europe as a derogatory term for the late-coming American troops who the Australians apparently called 'raspberrys' as they considered them worthless as soldiers. Razoo being a typical Australian contraction.
QuotePear shaped
I'd heard "going pears shaped" came from WW1 British Balloon troops Artillery observation balloons were filled with hydrogen and filling them was a very dangerous business. If filled incorrectly the nice round balloon went pear shaped. Not only wrong but dangerously wrong.
I alsways liked the idea that Artiilery obnservers in balloons were given parachutes because they were highly trained and therefore valuable but pilots weren't given parachutes because the planes were more valuable than they were. However I suspect this is appocraphal, WW1 parachutes were both bulky and heavy and would have substantially reduced most aircrafts performance.
Not phrases but still interesting
"to maffick" : To celebrate in a manner out of all proportion to the importance of the event (From celebrations following the relief of Mafeking during the Boer War) - a word desperately in need of revival
"Camisade" : A night attack on a fortified place from the (I think) Spanish word for shirt. Derived from the custom of attackers wearing white shirts over their equipment during night attacks to distinguish them from the defenders.
"Forlorn Hope" a vanguard attacking a fortified position said to be derived from the Dutch word for "advanced guard". I've seen other derivations suggested but this one is an interesting example of words changing to find an appropriate meaning.
Dave Turner
I understand enough Dutch (vie Afrikaans and German) to say that "folorn" certainly does not mean "advanced". It means "lost", an archaic meaning of the English adjective. Compare the Frog term for the same unit, "enfants perdus", and forgive me if my spelling or grammar's off there; French is a language I know little of.
I think it's like this:
'Verlorene Haufen', i.e. a German (Landsknecht period) advance guard. Literally, that means 'Lost unit', like 'Enfants perdus', lost children.
In Dutch it would be 'Verloren hoop', where the hoop indeed has the meaning of unit, but also has the meaning of hope.
Translated to English (badly), you'd get the 'Forlorn Hope' idiom, where the original meaning is lost.
The German for lost hope would be 'Verlorene Hoffnung'.
That makes sense to me