Swearing Like A Trooper: Rude Slang of World War Two - Tapa dura

Acerca del autor

M.J. Trow is an historian and writer whose books include A Brief History of Vampires. His documentary on Cleopatra was recently screened on the National Geographic Channel. Originally from Rhondda, South Wales, he lives on the Isle of Wight.

De la contraportada

How soldiers and civilians alike swore and cursed their way through the Second World War, from sexual euphemisms to rude songs and insults.

De la solapa interior

The Second World War was the People's War, with civilians, including women and children, effectively on the frontline. Women in particular were smoking, drinking, dancing and swearing like no female generation before them.

In September 1939, much military slang still dated to the trenches of 1914-18 - for instance words such as 'berthas' (meaning big breasts), taken from the German Big Bertha gun. But the war soon gave birth to a new wave of armed forces slang, with words such as 'wizard prang', DSO (dick shot off), and bazookas (back to breasts again). And with the Americans overpaid, over-sexed and over here, more new slang from across the Pond infiltrated our everyday language: 'nugget' for a girl and 'cheesecake' was GI slang for a gorgeous girl.

Some British terms came from the army's links with India, for instance 'zig-zig' or 'jig-jig' meaning sexual intercourse, and officers' euphemisms such as 'losing one's cherry' and 'naval engagements' also became commonplace in the Mess.

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