Words and Their Stories:
Military Expressions
Terms used to describe
members of the
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This is Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR
STORIES, a program in Special English on the Voice of America. We tell
about some common expressions in American English.
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A leatherneck or a grunt do not sound like
nice names to call someone. Yet men and women who serve in the
After the American Civil War in the eighteen
sixties, a writer in a publication called Beadle’s Monthly used the word doughboy to describe Civil War soldiers. But
word expert Charles Funk says that early writer could not explain where the
name started.
About twenty years later, someone did explain.
She was the wife of the famous American general George Custer.
Elizabeth Custer wrote that a doughboy was a
sweet food served to Navy men on ships. She also said the name was given to the
large buttons on the clothes of soldiers. Elizabeth Custer believed the name
changed over time to mean the soldiers themselves.
Now, we probably most often think of doughboys
as the soldiers who fought for the Allies in World War One.
By World War Two, soldiers were called other
names. The one most often heard was GI, or GI
Joe. Most people say the letters GI were a short way to
say general issue or government issue. The name came to mean several things. It
could mean the soldier himself. It could mean things given to soldiers when
they joined the military such as weapons, equipment or clothes. And, for some
reason, it could mean to organize, or clean.
Soldiers often say, “We GI’d the place.” And when an area
looks good, soldiers may say the area is “GI.” Strangely, though, GI can also
mean poor work, a job badly done.
Some students of military words have another
explanation of GI. They say that instead of government issue or general issue,
GI came from the words galvanized iron. The American soldier was said to be
like galvanized iron, a material produced for special strength. The Dictionary
of Soldier Talk says GI was used for the words galvanized iron in a publication
about the vehicles of the early twentieth century.
Today, a doughboy or GI may be called a grunt. Nobody is sure of the exact
beginning of the word. But, the best idea probably is that the name comes
from the sound that troops make when ordered to march long distances carrying
heavy equipment.
A member of the United States Marines also has
a strange name -- leatherneck.
It is thought to have started in the eighteen hundreds. Some say the name comes
from the thick collars of leather early Marines wore around their necks to
protect them from cuts during battles. Others say the sun burned the Marines’
necks until their skin looked like leather.
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This Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR
STORIES, was written by Jeri Watson. I’m Phil Murray.