Soldiers created much of what we think of as modern-day slang as men from every class and culture mingled
during the 20th-century Great War, from 1914-1918.
A forensic analysis of letters and official records has enabled military historian Peter Doyle and etymologist Julian Walker to claim that “modern” words were actually in use almost a century ago.
The modern-day slang word “gaff”, for example, was actually used almost a century ago to describe makeshift theatres built behind the lines to entertain troops.
Other words had a more direct military link including snapshot – a quickly aimed and taken rifle shot – and
dud, used to describe faulty shells.
Bloke, first used by the lower classes to refer to a gentleman, came to be a term for all men as different social groups fought side by side.
Soldiers have always had a genius for slang
Regional dialects played a part too.
Binge, a Lancashire word, also came to be used to by all to describe soldiers who were drunk.
Scrounger, a northern word for someone who foraged for food, was widely used, although today it may have a slightly different meaning.
Gallows humour crept into the soldiers’ conversations often. Fallen comrades were said to have snuffed it, become a landowner or were pushing up daisies. Others were said to have “Gone West”.
Mr Walker, who works at the British Library, said: “It was a very creative time for language. Soldiers have always had a genius for slang.
“This was a citizen army – and also the first really literate army – and at the end of the war, those that survived
took their new terms back to the general population.”
It wasn’t just English words that were brought home, reveals Trench Talk: Words Of The First World War.
Troops returned from the Western Front using the French word souvenir to describe their wartime mementos rather than keepsakes.
Further afield, Indian Army soldiers spread the use of Hindi words, most notably the term Blighty from the word bilati, meaning foreign.
Indian servicemen thought the word meant British.
Incredibly, language even crossed enemy lines with the German word to punish “strafe” entering the English
vocabulary after soldiers saw signs across the trenches threatening “Gott Strafe England”.