British Military and American Jargon
 

Right; any Brown Jobs out there; I've got a complaint.
I was watching a video last night , President Blair was in Iraq saying thanks to the sqaudies, nothing wrong so far.
The sqaudies then put on a show for him that involved blowing up some ordinance. Prior to the explosion a soldier called out a warning " Fire in the hole"
Where did that blatant bit of Americanism come from then and who told him to say it.
Any top brass reading this can you please get this stopped, God almighty we'll be giving troops in the field Coca Cola next (Yanks stopped an exercise in Greece for this very reason once)

Just as I have seen non-US military personnell sporting US style rank insignia, presumably because the US military could not be bothered to learn to identify other countries' rank insignia? Or was it all for the benefit of CNN:}

General Peter Cosgrove, Chief of the Australian Defence Force wore for stars!!! I suspect its because the Americans do not have the knack of understanding their "allies" rank structure. Whats next, turning a Corporals stripes upside down so GI Joe knows whether to salute or not!!!

I notice that the following are creeping in:

"When you do the math"

"You'll have the hammer on that" (WTF does that mean?)

Plus the Americanizations-wordwize (creeping use of zeds, sorry, zees instead of esses, you'll note) used by those who've been on exchange tours.

I'm tempted to ask, "So what?". We use non-British-English phrases (French, Latin et al ) all the time, so why the fuss about Americanisms? Certain Americanisms are more punchy and apt than their British-English equivalents and it is easy to see how they have crept into our military parlance.

Other phrases, such as those pointed out by Beagle (above), have no 'short-hand' value and simply sound ridiculous when uttered without the American drawl (and sometimes with it). Still, it's hardly worth getting one's knickers in a twist over. I find far more annoying some of the (home grown) management speak, that seems to spread, like a lingual virus, from the Purple Learning Centre.

Ah yes - PLC pratt-chat:

"I hear what you say" = Say what you like, I'll do bug.ger all to help.

"I opine that this is not germane to the issue" = This is bolleaux

"Deep blue water thought" = (Means nothing but sounds as though it should)

"Nugatory effort"= Waste of time

Then there was the Latin era. All of a sudden 'inter alia' kept cropping up in purple-prose. But there's nothing better than making up a few of your own to confuse the opposition:

"Ob has causas" = Because of what I've just said.
"His verbis dictis, autem" = Having said that, however.
"Porcovolant comment!" = Pigs will fly first.


Any more examples of stupid PLC prose - or revenge?

jargon
 

What about altimeter pronounced the american way....."al-tim-meter" instead of the correct English "alt-ti-metre"...that really grips me....in fact, it grips me so much that I am not sure as to whether I have the right spelling.
Other jargon which pisssses me off
"robust" - the senior officers way of preventing any further argument.
"granularity" meaning detail- I think this is a new PJHQ craze
"austere" which clearly means doing things on the cheap and thus one step closer to the coveted OBE
"overarching and underpinning" whatever they mean
Bah!

De-encouragize
 

:mad: We have to de-encouragize this prepesitizing for de-un-americanizationing.

I'm confused.
 

I guess I just read the intro wrong. I thought this thread was about the unintelligible phraseology used by the Brits and totally not understandable by the Americans and others of the non-British persuasion. I believe that many of the posts on these threads should have sub-titles so the guys and gals on this side of the pond understand what it is you are saying.

:confused:

Ahhhh, but BEagle, as all those poor unfortunates who are going through the Purple Learning Centres' idiotic 'let's learn English and writing the hard way' course will tell you, all those ize words should be spelt like that! The spam spelling is to use an 's' apparently. BOL**CKS! I give it 2 years before the disastrous results of President Blairs education system reforms hit home and those lovely people at Shriv realise that not only have people not got a clue how to conjugate the past-tense of the verb, they can't even spell verb. Ahhh, the wonders of a modern education. Standards have not slipped! We just expect them to learn less, spell and write correctly less, oh, and ask them much simpler questions than we ever used to! Hold on everyone, the most reviled course in christendom, nay the Universe, is coming to an end

The curse of the english language is the spell checker with their blo*dy Z's instead of S's. It took me ages to restore words with s instead of z. Some at work think I'm crasy!
I have a Chief Pilot who keeps using robust in every sentence, Kids, sorry I mean children, who after years of Sesame Street abuse (well we had to shut them up somehow) now say Zee when it should be Zed.
We've got one of the richest languages in the world with plenty of words nicked from other peoples dialect after they invited us to invade their country and stay for a while; Khaki, camoflage, buckshee, pyjama etc etc do we really need holywood hard man phrases "go ahead punk" motherf**ker, butt. No I don't think so.
Boeing check list B727 after flap retraction required the NFP to call "Clean machine" not english is it.
So top Army Brass get rid of the americanisms please
Thanks
FEBA

Ha-Rumph! I say! Must be some of that American blood coming out in you.....dare say we might have left a robust contribution to the English gene pool during WWII. I notice more Budweiser beer in coolers behind the bars nowadays.....what with Mickey D's showing up on all the corners and Wimpy's gone bust.....who knows you will be watching reruns of Dallas, sipping your Pepsi's , and driving your Fords. Next thing you know it will be leisure suits, check trousers and plaid polysester shirts. We are cousins in more ways than one as I see it!

But then....American culture always was a bit coarse....cannot expect much from a race of people who make saltwater tea.

FEBA, we have been using your English for 400 plus years, so fair is fair.

:) :) :)

MILITARY SLANG
 

I checked this thread thinking it would be fun- both the Americans and the Brits contribute some good slang. Having left the military some time ago, I'm not au courant with current usage.
There's a difference between diplo/beaurato-speak, which I agree is infuriating- call a spade a shovel.
Nota bene : Since Boeing made the 727, perhaps it's understandable that they would use colonial english ; maybe you think 'clean (up) machine' should be expanded...

In any case, F.I.D.O.

As one of the people sentenced to a long term of incarceration at said establishment...

I hear what you say" = Say what you like, I'll do bug.ger all to help.

I fear that you've not been issued with the latest MoD guide ''Circumscribing Interlocution" BEags. 'I hear what you say' now means 'Well thank you for that view, which I shall totally ignore. Kindly fcuk off.'

"Deep blue water thought" = (Means nothing but sounds as though it should)

Also joined by 'sky blue thinking'. I discovered that this is not a reference to Coventry City FC, but the new way of saying 'thinking about the future'.

'Don't be content with the low hanging fruit'

I have no idea what this really means, although it is apparently something to do with the depth of analysis applied.

'We must re-vector our outlook' = Things have gone to ratsh*t. Time for Plan B'

'The complexity and ambiguities prevelant in today's security environment mean that it is necessary to refocus our strategic vectors' = I have no idea what our future strategy should be.

'Welcome to week 39' = Ha! Still another month to go, you poor b@st@rds! [add manic laugh].

There have been others, but I've thankfully managed to purge them from my memory.

Like a few others, I thought this thread would be about "leff-tennant" vs "loo-tennant" etc. Instead, it's the old "our English is better than your English" thing. Everyone knows it is we Aussies who speak the best English in the world.
:p
Seriously though, the reason English has been around for so long and is spoken by so many people as a first or second language is because it is so adaptable. For approx the last thousand years people have been saying "the language is going downhill because of the vikings/Danes/Normans/Americans and we have to stop it". To date the success rate of such plans has been zero. It's just how the language is.
English doesn't belong to the SE corner of England. It belongs to everyone who speaks it, whether they are in London, Belfast, New York, Delhi, Cape Town, Sydney, Wellington, Cairo, Tel Aviv or Rio de Janero.

Well said Surditas.

Language is a living, evolving thing. It moves like the river of life which supports it, ebbing and flowing like the tides of the peoples and societies who use it, as they rise and fade in the great wash we call humanity.

New words are born into living languages, old ones die, others change meanings or take on additional nuances.

Some languages, by virtue of their scope, adaptability, precision, and sheer melody, spread and flourish to reflect the vigour of those who call them their native tongue.

English is one such language, as was Latin in a bygone age.

Like any living thing, true appreciation of the inner beauty of language cannot be found by mourning the passing of any of its developmental stages. Instead, give thanks perhaps that such ever was.

Words, An Illustrated History of Western Languages, by Victor Stevenson, (doesn't seem to have an ISBN number anywhere) Copyright 1983 Edison/Sadd Editions Ltd, is a fascinating read on the subject.

Now if only people could learn to speak it properly....
;)

I recently purchased MS Office XP. During the start up thingy it asked me to choose my language.

'German' was accompanied by a nice little German flag,
'French' was accompanied by a French flag.....
'Italian'.......well you get the point....

Next to "English" was an American flag!

--------------

I once met a young lady, from NY, in a bar in Hawaii who was astounded that we spoke "American" too. She also wanted to know if we also had Christmas on 25 December "or did we wait for it to snow?"

Having watched a bit of American sports, I want to know if "winningest" is really a word? eg: "They are the most winningest team in the NFL"
Could they not just be the "team with the most wins"?

But if Hollywood can re-write history eg: Pearl Harbour, U571 and Saving Private Ryan why not start on the language too.

:bored:

If Bill Gates had been British, you might have seen the union jack. To the winner go the spoils and claim to ownership.

True Bluewolf, remember Good Queen Bess and the Bard himself spoke English much in the manner we Geordies do, and George Washinton hailed from these parts also, so he probably sounded like a pitman.
:rolleyes: