Army Lingo

cartav wrote:

Good stuff coming up on this topic now ! These derivations disappear if we don't keep repeating them. I suppose BRuM was some sort of 1950's Formula 1 motor, or the noise it made......

BRM ! Very good !

(Completely wasted on anyone younger than me though !).

Gordon. wrote:

Scaley kid or brat referred to children of RAF types

Scaley on its own can be likened to Teabag

Hope that clears it up.

Huh? Don't you swear at me, RAF indeed.

Erk = Aircraftsman.

Pushing your PULLHEEMS = Pushing your luck.

Not being a plank (RA), I always thought the screw gun was named because you screwed the breech in, not because it unscrewed in half???

'Lo Teabag........

Nope.... " ....... the gun that was made in two bits " is in the poem & song by Kipling.
There are breeches which are closed by an interrupted screw, or like the 25 pdr. for instance, by a falling block. Early screw guns were muzzle loaders, anyway.

There's an informative website on Google.......... Sorry to be a smart arse (again!)

Ditto regards the Smart Arse comment Tebag, only one L in PULHEEMS.


P Physical Characteristics

U Upper Limbs

L Lower Limbs

H Hearing

E Right Eye

E Left Eye

M Mental State

S Stability

cartav wrote:

'Lo Teabag........

Nope.... " ....... the gun that was made in two bits " is in the poem & song by Kipling.
There are breeches which are closed by an interrupted screw, or like the 25 pdr. for instance, by a falling block. Early screw guns were muzzle loaders, anyway.

There's an informative website on Google.......... Sorry to be a smart arse (again!)

Just been looking in my trusty book.

There were early muzzle loading guns that screwed together but the Screw Gun in general use was the Ordnance Jointed BL 10 Pr Mk 1.

(I Quote).

"Jointed Gun"

"A gun made in two pieces, muzzle section and breech section, for transport and joined together by some sort of junction nut for firing.
Commonly called the "screw gun" it was invariably found with mule-pack artillery to keep loads at an acceptable weight for each mule.
Advanced designs incorporated some form of safety interlock that prevented the gun being loaded and fired if the junction of the two parts had been incorrectly joined.
Early designs did not have this safety device which occasionally produced some innocent entertainment among the gunners."

Brum, was that the one that the Gny Staff issued you when you did your AIGs Course at Larkhill?

Shelldrake wrote:

Ditto regards the Smart Arse comment Tebag, only one L in PULHEEMS.


P Physical Characteristics

U Upper Limbs

L Lower Limbs

H Hearing

E Right Eye

E Left Eye

M Mental State

S Stability

You knew what I meant!

re the term "squaddie".....

I became aware of the term circa 1971 when my dad was closing out the last of the old Brigade Area of Soest/Werl/Hemer etc and we were living in Iserlohn and involved with British Army. My only social outlet as a teen was amongst the British kids in Hemer, where I went to school under the Canadians.

"Squaddie", I was told, referred to an unmarried soldier. Of course, to my Canadian ears it often sounded like "Squat-ee" and so I initially assumed it was derived from them squatting down in trenches or behind artillery or what-have-you. No. And, in retrospect, that seems pretty obtuse anyway. I believe -- and I could be wrong -- it referred to them being organized in squads or units. However, the explanation it may have been derived from the Indian Army term 'swaddy' makes some sense as many Canadian and moreso British military terms, especially slang, have their roots in the Raj and then, over the years, got corrupted. So it doesn't take a great leap of faith to see how 'swaddy' evolved into 'squaddie'.

Of course, all the British mothers I knew who had daughters warned their daughters off having anything to do with squaddies! Forgetting, it would seem, that as army wives they married squaddies themselves!!

And, yes, there was a slightly perjorative aspect to the term....

sick, lame and lazy = Unit sick parade

It's gerrin reight technical, like, on this topic, sithee! Ref to my Collins worterbuch might resolve it.............

1, "Squaddy", or "Squaddie", are alternative spellings & either is
acceptable.
2. The derivation, the descent of the word, is 20th Century in origin, it refers
to a private soldier, one who is part of a squad. No colonial or
Indian sub-continental connections are mentioned as having relevance.


3. Personally, I can recall that it was part of the dialogue in the film "Saturday
Night & Sunday Morning". The main character, played by Albert Finney, is
sorted out by two squaddies in Battledress after he put Rachael Roberts in
the Pudding Club. Don't know the date of the film, late 1960's I'd guess.
Look it up on Google if it's important.

Shelldrake wrote:

Ditto regards the Smart Arse comment Tebag, only one L in PULHEEMS.


P Physical Characteristics

U Upper Limbs

L Lower Limbs

H Hearing

E Right Eye

E Left Eye

M Mental State

S Stability

PULHEEMS !

Bloody hell, I'd forgotten them !

One of the many collections of initials you had to learn as a recruit.

Like "POSB" and "SDS run" "Don R" and "Don ten" etc, etc.

Shelldrake wrote:

Brum, was that the one that the Gny Staff issued you when you did your AIGs Course at Larkhill?

Me Sir ? A Gun Bunny Sir ? How very DARE you Sir !

There is a RSA connection to this book, though Shelldrake.

The author was Ian V Hogg. He did 27 years with the RA, 20 of them as an instructor on ordnance and ammunition at the Royal School of Artillery.

The author was Ian V Hogg. He did 27 years with the RA, 20 of them as an instructor on ordnance and ammunition at the Royal School of Artillery.[/quote]

Top man........ He was a Master Gunner, too. Got one of his on small arms of WW2.

And Brum ! Love it when you talk technical ! Perhaps you didn't do much when all you had to do was light the blue touch paper on those rocket things, but if you want to exchange thoughts on MVs, Oscar Tango lines, Angles of sight or tangent elevations, crest clearances and TITEWIDOWS, give me a lead & perhaps I can get back at all those Scabbies that were taking the mick about my ignorance.

tangent elevation = elevation of a point along the initial tangent...It`s all here Dave.

http://nigelef.tripod.com/fc_pre1914.htm

We only became scabbies when the scales rubbed off

OK Fellas, thanks for the info on Squaddy or Squaddie, still cannot recollect hearing the term at the AAS. 63-66.

OK, another one - 'Rupert' - slang for new Lt or 2/Lt, never heard that one either in the 60's.

Where did that come from?

With you on that one Les.I never heard of a Rupert or a Rodney untill well after i got out.

Thanks for the reminder Gordon......... Must get back for that card, though with the prices they charge these days it'd be cheaper to slip a fiver in the envelope.

The other stuff is technical Gunner speak, maybe from before a kid like Brum's time, before FACE computers took over from pencils & backs of envelopes. Obviously it didn't throw you entirely, but I bet TITE WIDOWS might have had you baffled & drooling!

Rupert ?????? Guess (& only Guess) it's thought be one of those up-market names which are unkindly associated with offspring of landed gentry, of public school types or chinless wonders.

Recalling films again , & only because they are familiar through frequent repetition on TV, in the D-Day epic, "Longest Day", the dummy parachutists dropped to confuse the Krauts were known as Ruperts . That's going back to 1944, and has nothing to do with this at all !

Gordon. wrote:

With you on that one Les.I never heard of a Rupert or a Rodney untill well after i got out.

One that remains in my brain is the OC LAD/Wksps, normally a Capt/Maj who was referred to as "The EME". The young REME Rodney was known as "The Emelet" - clever.

shelldrakes latest posting reminded me of the situation in catterick in the mid80s

this was in the interim period before the final disbandment of the wrac.

as a trial suitably qualified wrac officers were posted to selected units in mainsteam appointments rather than previously tied wrac posts. seem to remember that royal signals and int corps led the way, closely followed by reme then rct then sappers

up shot in catterick was a wrac captain was posted in as oc lad rac centre workshop she quickly became known throughout the garrison as "the sheme". she got on extremely well with the parent regiment (a distinguished cavalry regiment with a very distinctive headress) who invited her to wear it as part of her normal working dress, commander wrac was not amused but was powerless to stop her

cartav wrote:

The author was Ian V Hogg. He did 27 years with the RA, 20 of them as an instructor on ordnance and ammunition at the Royal School of Artillery.

Top man........ He was a Master Gunner, too. Got one of his on small arms of WW2.

"Military Small Arms of the 20th Century" by any chance ?

It looks like we were both in the same military book club !
(In the 80s, I think ).

Gordon. wrote:

With you on that one Les.I never heard of a Rupert or a Rodney untill well after i got out.

The first time I saw the expression was on this website actually.

Shelldrake wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

With you on that one Les.I never heard of a Rupert or a Rodney untill well after i got out.

One that remains in my brain is the OC LAD/Wksps, normally a Capt/Maj who was referred to as "The EME". The young REME Rodney was known as "The Emelet" - clever.

"eemy", "dreemy", "creemy". Then there was "crayoc" !

There wasn't much you could do with RA DRA CRA or RE DRE CRE, or the Signals equivalent, I don't suppose.

(re. my earlier thread - more initials !).

Brum, you forgot CRAC!

brum

to complete your bluebell initials

there was beemy and feemy

to go with crayoc there was bowo, somewhere along the line there was also brasco