Words and The First World War

by Julian Walker

383The Story of an Epic Pilgrimage, p. 85.

  384Derry Journal, 30 November 1917, p. 3.

  385Holmes, Tommy, p. 153.

  386See ap Glyn, ‘Dear Mother …’ in Walker and Declercq, Languages and the First World War: communicating, pp. 128–42.

  387P. Doyle, Kitchener’s Mob, (Stroud: The History Press, 2016), p. 152.

  388Gill and Dallas, Unknown Army, p. 45.

  389ap Glyn, ‘Dear Mother …’, in Walker and Declercq, Languages and the First World War: communicating, p. 132.

  390MacDonald, Under the French Flag, p. 125.

  391Vansittart, John Masefield’s Letters, 5 April 1915.

  392Pulvertaft, Reminiscences.

  393Liverpool Daily Post, 26 July 1916, pp. 3–4.

  394Birmingham Mail, 4 September 1915, p. 3.

  395Capt Keith Duce, Imperial War Museum interview, [sound recording c.1975].

  396M. McDonagh, The Irish on the Somme, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917), p. 126.

  397L. W. Crouch, Duty and Service: letters from the front by Captain Lionel William Crouch, (London; Aylesbury: printed for private circulation, 1917), quoted in K. Cowman, ‘ “The … ‘parlez’ is not going on very well ‘avec moi’: Learning and Using “Trench French” on the Western Front’, in Walker and Declercq, Languages and the First World War: communicating, p. 30.

  398Rochdale Observer, 20 May 1916, p. 6.

  399Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 17 December 1915, p. 3; the Leeds Mercury, 22 June 1915, p. 2, and the Stonehaven Jornal, 27 December 1917, p. 3, used the term without inverted commas.

  400Weekley, Words Ancient and Modern, p. 78.

  401Brophy and Partridge, The Long Trail, 1969 edn, p. 155.

  402E. Bagnold, A Diary Without Dates, (London: Heinemann, 1918).

  4032nd Lt Claude Sisley, writing in The Athenaeum, 1 August 1919, p. 695, confirmed this.

  404Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, p. 163.

  405Brophy and Partridge, The Long Trail, 1969 edn, p. 133.

  406MacDonald, Under the French Flag, pp. 103, 104, 114.

  407Leroy, A Glossary of French Slang, 1924 edn, pp. 30–31.

  408H. Wyatt, Malice in Kulturland, (Richmond: The Car Illustrated, [1914] 1917), p. 37.

  409In Stanley, ‘ “He was black …” ’, in Das, Race, Empire, p. 213.

  410Menin Gate Pilgrimage, p. 13.

  411War Budget, 3 February 1916, p. 377.

  412The Lady, 12 November 1914, p. 712.

  413Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, pp. 151, 189.

  414Ibid., p. 137.

  415Fifth Gloucester Gazette, 5 May 1915.

  416Barker, Agony’s Anguish, p. 64.

  417Lighter, Slang of the AEF, p. 52.

  418The Times, 18 May 1915, p. 6.

  419Quoted in Wadsworth, Letters from the Trenches, p. 146.

  420Edmonds, A Subaltern’s War, p. 127.

  421Barker, Agony’s Anguish.

  422Kilpatrick, Atkins at War, p. 42.

  423Brindle, France and Flanders, p. 79.

  424The Scotsman, 23 July 1917, p. 6.

  425Western Daily Press, 29 May 1915, p. 9.

  426Stereoview postcard caption, author’s collection.

  427Stereoview postcard caption, author’s collection.

  428Cpl W. Shaw, quoted in MacDonald, Voices and Images, 1991 edn, pp. 155–6.

  429Punch, 2 December 1914, p. xiii.

  430Duffin, Diaries, and D. Walker, Lost Generation.

  431Letter quoted in Menin Gate Pilgrimage, p. 39.

  432Ibid., p. 15.

  433Florence Billington in Van Emden and Humphries, All Quiet on the Home Front, p. 19.

  434Bagnold, Diary Without Dates.

  435For example McDonagh, The Irish on the Somme, p. 126.

  436Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, p. 223; Leroy, A Glossary of French Slang, 1924 edn, p. 11.

  437‘Oh la la’ Partridge notes as being used by Germans and Americans to the French, ‘Dee-donk’ by Americans only: Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, p. 222.

  438Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, p. 157.

  439Yorkshire Evening Post, 15 November 1918, p. 5.

  440The Athenaeum, 25 July 1919, p. 664. It is surprising to see this in this publication; perhaps the writers did not recognise the implication.

  441Coppard, With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, 1986 edn, p. 16.

  442Smith, Four Years on the Western Front, p. 71.

  443Mottram, Journey to the Western Front, p. 45.

  444Burrage, War is War, 2010 edn, p. 90; he uses ‘souvenir’ to mean a baby fathered by a Canadian soldier.

  445C. Makepeace, ‘Soldiers, masculinity and prostitutes in WW1’, in J. Arnold and S. Brady (eds), What is Masculinity?, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 416.

  446Ibid., p. 420.

  447Palmer and Wallis, A War in Words, 2004 edn, p. 227.

  448Williamson, The Patriot’s Progress, p. 133.

  449Makepeace, ‘Soldiers, masculinity and prostitutes in WW1’, p. 418.

  450Graves, Goodbye to All That, 1960 edn, p. 116.

  451See Smith, The Second Battlefield, p. 78.

  452Williamson, The Patriot’s Progress, p. 136.

  453Rees, In the Trenches, [sound dramatisation].

  454E. Southard, Shellshock And Other Neuropsychiatric Problems, N. Fenton and C. Mills (eds), (Boston: W. M. Leonard, 1919), p. 212.

  455Fun, 25 December 1915, tenth page (unpaginated).

  456Stanley, Grandad’s War, p. 53.

  457Postcard, 24 May 1919, author’s collection.

  458Quoted in J. Marlow, The Virago Book of Women and the Great War, (London: Virago Press, [1998] 2005), 1998 edn, p. 219.

  459The name was given by German troops grateful that they would not have to charge the Belgian forts in August 1914.

  460Karl Schrever, quoted in Doyle and Schäfer, Fritz and Tommy, p. 226.

  461Also the name ‘soixante-quinze’ was given to a cocktail invented in 1915.

  462The Champion, 9 May 1925, p. 425, in a boys’ serial story.

  463Fraser and Gibbons.

  464The Wellington Times (NSW), 24 January 1918, p. 9.

  465Brophy and Partridge, The Long Trail, and Denham, Dardanelles, April–May 1915.

  466Denham, Dardanelles, April–May 1915. Denham wrote ‘we gave all the enemy howitzer guns nicknames’, 27 April 1915.

  467Hepper, Great War Diary, 30 November 1917.

  468Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1914, p. 5.

  469Doyle and Schäfer, Fritz and Tommy, p. 57.

  470Partridge, Words! Words! Words!, p. 185.

  471Ibid., p. 186.

  472Ibid., p. 163.

  473Notes and Queries, 29 October 1921, p. 344.

  474Partridge, Slang of the British Soldier, p. 58.

  475D. Miller, The Illustrated Directory of Tanks of the World, (London: Salamander, 2000), p. 302.

  476Daily Mirror, 30 November 1914, p. 12.

  477Oxford English Dictionary.

  478Sheffield Independent, 7 August 1914, p. 5 (‘Western front’); Dublin Daily Express, 24 August 1914, p. 3 (‘Eastern front’).

  479Dublin Daily Express, 12 August 1914, p. 6; Aberdeen Press and Journal, 25 August 1914, p. 4.

  480The Scotsman, 23 September 1914, p. 8.

  481L. Mugglestone, States of Siege, December 2014. https://wordsinwartime.wordpress.com accessed 26 November 2016.

  482Aberdeen Evening Express, 2 September 1914, p. 3.

  483Birmingham Daily Post, 25 September 1914, p. 5.

  484Western Mail (et al.), 21 September 1914, p. 5.

  485The Scotsman, 18 September 1914, p. 3.

  486The Pow-Wow, 16 December 1914, pp. 3, 4.

  487The Gasper, 8 January 1916, p. 7.

  488Daily Sketch, 25 January 1916, p. 10.

  489Daily Record, 27 September 1915, p. 1.

  490Postcard dated 31 March 1915, On Active Service, author’s collection.

  491Postcard dated 17 April 1915, On Activ
e Service, author’s collection.

  492Leeds Mercury, 31 August 1917, p. 6.

  493Dundee Courier, 30 September 1918, p. 2.

  494Postcard, On Active Service, 1 July 1915, author’s collection.

  495Spicer, Letters from France, 16 March 1916.

  496Diary of George Williams, 1 April 1916, 30 June 1916, 31 August 1916. http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/en/contributions/17242 accessed 7 October 2016.

  497Postcard, On Active Service, author’s collection.

  498Postcard dated 1 July 1915, On Active Service, author’s collection.

  499Postcard dated 23 October 1915, On Active Service, author’s collection.

  500Cook, War Diary, 15 September 1914.

  501Rifleman F. Walker, Diary, 6 October 1918, author’s collection.

  502Diary of George Williams, 1 April 1916, http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/en/contributions/17242 accessed 7 October 2016.

  503Hewett, A Scholar’s Letters, p. 40, written before July 1916.

  504Postcard dated 9 September 1918, author’s collection.

  505Manchester Evening News, 8 March 1915, p. 2.

  506Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 18 August 1915, p. 3.

  507Postcard dated 23 December 1915, On Active Service, author’s collection.

  508Letter, National Archives (RAIL 253/516).

  509Lt R. Palmer, 24 April 1915, quoted in Van Emden, Tommy’s War, p. 120.

  510Spicer, Letters from France, 23 August 1917.

  511Amy Shield, letter, 23 February 1916, p. 4, author’s collection.

  512Quoted in MacDonald, Voices and Images, 1991 edn, p. 53.

  513Capt G. Horridge, 1917, quoted in ibid., p. 215.

  514Gloucestershire Echo, 22 August 1917, p. 1; Birmingham Daily Post, 27 August 1917, p. 3; Burnley News, 15 August 1917, p. 4; Yorkshire Post, 23 August 1917, p. 6.

  515Harris, Private papers, 13 June 1916.

  516The Sphere, 3 June 1916, pp. 211, 213.

  517Williamson, The Patriot’s Progress, p. 61.

  518A Month at the Front, p. 39.

  519Quoted in Holmes, Tommy, p. 286.

  520Lighter, Slang of the AEF, p. 82.

  521F. Vizetelly, The Service Soldier’s Dictionary of English and French Terms, (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1917), p. 94.

  522Falkirk Herald, 23 October 1915, p. 8.

  523Ibid., 29 January 1916, p. 10.

  524The Daily Telegraph, 2 November 1914, p. 7.

  525Punch, 21 February 1917, p. x.

  526Ibid., 17 May 1916, p. iv.

  527Daily Express, 20 April 1918, p. 4.

  528Liverpool Echo, 31 August 1917, p. 4.

  529Punch, 9 May 1917, p. xv.

  530Ibid., 10 April 1918, p. iv.

  531Ibid., 8 May 1918, p. iv.

  532Ibid., 28 February 1917, p. ix.

  533The Bystander, 3 April 1918, p. 3.

  534The Daily Telegraph, 3 November 1914, p. 7.

  535The Gasper, 28 February 1916, p. 2.

  536Lighter, Slang of the AEF, p. 67.

  537Punch, 24 April 1918, p. ix.

  538St Andrews Citizen, 4 November 1916, p. 1.

  539Daily Record, 13 December 1916, p. 2.

  540Kipling, The Irish Guards, p. 55.

  541Sporting Times, 20 January 1917, p. 7.

  542Aberdeen Evening Express, 19 October 1915, p. 4.

  543Chelmsford Chronicle, 8 October 1915, p. 2.

  544Army and Navy Gazette, 16 January 1915, p. 4.

  545In the other direction there were ‘Zeps in a cloud’ (sausages and mash), and ‘shrapnel’, ‘dum-dum’ and ‘handgrenades’ (grape-nuts, beans and meatballs, all US slang).

  546Weekly Freeman’s Journal, 12 May 1917, p. 4.

  547The Times, 31 March 1915, p. 7.

  548Evening Dispatch, 6 January 1917, p. 2; Sunday Mirror, 25 February 1917, p. 7.

  549Daily Mail, 16 December 1915, p. 4.

  550Spicer, Letters from France, 3 December 1915.

  551Chasseaud, Rats Alley, p. 91.

  552The Gasper, 8 January 1916, p. 3.

  553Hewett, A Soldier’s Letters from The Front, p. 39.

  554R. Vernède, Letters To His Wife, (London: W. Collins, Sons & Co., 1917), p. 32.

  555A Red Triangle Girl in France, p. 19.

  556Hewett, A Soldier’s Letters from The Front, p. 46.

  557Langley, Battery Flashes, p. 163.

  558MacBride, The Emma-Gees, p. 77.

  5592nd Lt A. Lamb, quoted in Doyle and Schäfer, Fritz and Tommy, p. 239.

  560Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 5 July 1918, p. 2.

  561On The Road To Kut, p. 25.

  562Trevelyan, Scenes From Italy’s War, p. 52.

  563Long, Colours of War, p. 128.

  564Spicer, Letters from France, 2 August 1916.

  565Dawson, A “Temporary Gentleman”, p. 7.

  566Postcard On Active Service, 24 March 1918, author’s collection.

  567‘Haßgesang gegen England’.

  568Broadhead, Diary, 28 November 1916.

  569Tytler, With Lancashire Lads, p. 22.

  570Wright, Shattered Glory, p. 243.

  571Lighter, Slang of the AEF, p. 97.

  572Herbert, Mons, Anzac, and Kut, 1919 edn, p. 92.

  573Fraser and Gibbons.

  574Punch, 23 May 1917, p. iv.

  575Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 12 March 1918, p. 5; E. T. Cook in Literary Recreations, (London: Macmillan & Co., 1918), p. 154, noted that the New York Sun urged that the American soldier’s nickname ‘must be Teddy’.

  576‘Our Own Correspondent’, 1915, quoted in Coleman, ‘ “Extraordinary cheeriness and good will” ’, in Walker and Declercq, Languages and the First World War: communicating, p. 263.

  577Daily Mirror, 11 August 1916, p. 12.

  578Partridge, Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.

  579Ibid.

  580Aussie, January 1918, p. 10.

  581Hull Daily Mail, 24 November 1919, p. 1.

  582Graves, Goodbye to All That, 1960 edn, p. 237.

  583Cook, ‘Fighting Words’, p. 343.

  584F. A. Voigt, Combed Out, (London: Jonathan Cape, [1920] 1929), p. 193.

  585The Gasper, 8 January 1916, p. 2.

  586Fall-In, 29 January 1916, p. 70.

  587Fraser and Gibbons.

  588Daily Mail, 26 November 1914, p. 8.

  589Reported in the Hull Daily Mail, 31 December 1921, p. 1.

  590Daily Mail, 3 March 1916, p. 4.

  591Liverpool Echo, 2 February 1918, p. 4.

  592All suggestions sent in to the Hull Daily Mail, 8 June 1917, p. 1.

  593Manchester Guardian, 17 April 1917, p. 3.

  594Daily Express, 15 December 1914, p. 4.

  4 The Home Front

  1D. Dendooven, ‘ “Fake Belgium”: linguistic issues in the diary of Father Achiel Van Walleghem (1914–1919)’, in Declercq and Walker, Languages and the First World War: representation, p. 51.

  2The Daily Telegraph, 11 November 1914, p. 11. Lyons’ Tea had already in September taken legal action against Lipton Ltd to prevent them from claiming that some of the directorate of Lyons were Germans.

  3The Lady, 21 January 1915, p. 69.

  4Daily Sketch, 10 December 1914, p. 13.

  5Portsmouth Evening News, 20 November 1914, p. 1.

  6Daily Telegraph, 11 November 1914, p. 11.

  7Wrigleys Chewing Gum, Daily Mirror, 14 October 1914, p. 11.

  8Nottingham Evening Post, 18 May 1915, p. 6.

  9Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 1 January 1916, p. 3.

  10Punch, 3 May 1916, p. vii.

  11War Budget, 1 June 1916, p. ii.

  12The Times, 10 September 1914, p. 4.

  13Yorkshire Evening Post, 31 October 1916, p. 5.

  14Ibid., 18 December 1917, p. 3.

  15Punch, 20 November 1918, p. x.

  16The Times, 7 October 1914, p. 3.

  17War Budget, 5 October 1916, p. iv.

  18The Tatler, 21 February
1917, p. 253.

  19The Rochdale Observer, 31 October 1914, p. 1.

  20Western Gazette, 11 December 1914, p. 5; Daily Sketch, 3 December 1914, p. 13; toys and games continued to appear, John Bull carrying on 15 January 1916 (p. 30) an advertisement for ‘The “Strand” War Game’, offering ‘the most fascinating pastime for the dull evenings … Soldiers and sailors all agree it is the best game of the war’.

  21Liverpool Echo, 3 November 1916, p. 5.

  22Yorkshire Evening Post, 26 November 1914, p. 4.

  23Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 27 November 1914, p. 1.

  24Dundee Evening Telegraph, 13 October 1914, p. 4.

  25Surrey Mirror, 18 December 1914, p. 8.

  26North Devon Journal, 1 October 1914, p. 1.

  27‘G.C. Dean, The Tailor’ – ‘Are we downhearted? A dozen times no! Then go in for a good blue serge suit or a nice Scotch Tweed, while you have the chance …’ Tamworth Herald, 20 April 1918, p. 2.

  28The Bystander, 8 January 1919, p. 58.

  29Western Times, 3 January 1919, p. 11.

  30See C. Pennell, A Kingdom United, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 90–91, for examples of actions against individuals and meetings.

  31Regulation 27/113 https://archive.org/stream/defenceofrealmma00grearich/defenceofrealmma00grearich_djvu.txt accessed 12 September 2016.

  32Derbyshire Courier, 23 September 1916, p. 5.

  33Newcastle Journal, 9 September 1916, p. 12.

  34Pall Mall Gazette, 30 June 1916, p. 5.

  35John Bull, 9 January 1915, p. 2.

  36Western Mail, 15 April 1915, p. 4.

  37The Passing Show, 18 January 1919, p. 461.

  38J. Lee, To-morrow is a New Day, (London: The Cresset Press, 1939), p. 38, quoted in Pennell, A Kingdom United, p. 90.

  39Koller, ‘Representing Otherness …’, pp. 128–9.

  40P. Doyle and J. Walker, Trench Talk: words of the first World War, (Stroud: The History Press, 2012), pp. 193–4. Fraser and Gibbons described the short story as ‘a piece of realistic fiction’.

  41Vivid War Weekly, 16 October 1915, p. 167.

  42Doyle and Schäfer, Fritz and Tommy, pp. 83, 242.

  43Quoted in Wadsworth, Letters from the Trenches, p. 133.

  44Hong Kong Education Department, War Stories in English and Chinese, (Hong Kong, 1918), p. 8.

  45Brindle, France and Flanders, p. 6.

  46Liberal–Labour political meeting, reported in the Portsmouth Evening News, 1 May 1915, p. 5.

  47Vansittart, John Masefield’s Letters, p. 230, 27 March 1917.

  48Fall In, 15 January 1916, p. 66.

  49The Sphere, 6 March 1916, p. 297.