The Word at War
World War Two in 100 Phrases
1st Edition
Published on 25. September 2014
256 pages
978-1-4729-0491-1 (ISBN)
Description
War words have embedded themselves in our collective psyche; British politicians are fond of invoking the 'Dunkirk spirit' whenever the country is faced with major crisis or even minor adversity, and Roosevelt's famous description of Pearl Harbor as 'a date which will live in infamy' was echoed by many US commentators after the 9/11 attacks.
So far, so familiar. Or is it? How many of us know, for instance, that 'Keep Calm and Carry On', far from achieving its morale-boosting aim, was considered at the time to be deeply patronizing by the people it was directed at, and so had only limited distribution?
The Word at War explores 100 phrases spawned and popularized in the lead-up and during the conflict of World War Two. Substantial essays explore and explain the derivations of, and the stories behind, popular terms and phraseology of the period, including wartime speeches (and the words of Churchill, Hitler and FDR); service slang; national stereotypes; food and drink; and codewords.
So far, so familiar. Or is it? How many of us know, for instance, that 'Keep Calm and Carry On', far from achieving its morale-boosting aim, was considered at the time to be deeply patronizing by the people it was directed at, and so had only limited distribution?
The Word at War explores 100 phrases spawned and popularized in the lead-up and during the conflict of World War Two. Substantial essays explore and explain the derivations of, and the stories behind, popular terms and phraseology of the period, including wartime speeches (and the words of Churchill, Hitler and FDR); service slang; national stereotypes; food and drink; and codewords.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
ISBN-13
978-1-4729-0491-1 (9781472904911)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2015
Bloomsbury Information
€13.50
Shipment within 10-20 days
Book
09/2014
A&C Black Business Information and Development
€36.08
Article exhausted; check different version
Persons
Philip Gooden read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, and then taught at secondary level for many years. In 2001 he became a full-time writer. Philip writes books on the English language as well as historical crime novels and mysteries. He was chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 2007-8 and is part of the writing collective, The Medieval Murderers. He has also written the popular Who's Whose?: A No-Nonsense Guide to Easily-Confused Words, published by Bloomsbury.
Peter Lewis taught German at St Anne's College, Oxford and worked as a publishing commissioning editor before becoming a freelance translator, writer and project manager. Recent translations include The Mad Science Book (Quercus) and Roman Elegy (Haus Publishing).
Peter Lewis taught German at St Anne's College, Oxford and worked as a publishing commissioning editor before becoming a freelance translator, writer and project manager. Recent translations include The Mad Science Book (Quercus) and Roman Elegy (Haus Publishing).
Content
- Cover
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Legacy of World War One
- Civilian Collateral: Concentration camps
- Things to Come: Missile/Atom bomb
- Forces' Favourite: 'Lili Marleen'/'Lili Marlene'
- Hitler's Whopper: 'Stab in the back'/'the Big Lie'
- 2 Appeasement and the Phoney War
- Friends of the Führer: Mosleyites
- Blackshirts
- An Array of Oddballs: Imperial Fascist League/The Link/The English Mistery/The English Array
- Nazis Across the Pond: The Bund
- Pieces of Paper: Munich Agreement
- The Waiting Game: The Phoney War
- In Adolf's Bad Books: The Black List
- 3 Propaganda
- White Power: 'Aryanisation'/'German Ancestral Heritage'
- The Versatile 'V': 'V' for Victory
- Lure of the Crooked Cross: 'swastika'
- Lauding the Duce: 'Youth'/'Hip, hip, hooray!'
- Workers' Playtime, German Style: 'Strength through Joy'
- English Pastoral: 'Went the Day Well?'
- Pact of Steel: Axis
- The Grandeur That Was Rome: 'Roman-ness'/'Birth of Rome
- 4 Wartime Speeches
- Finest Hours: Churchill's mobilisation of language
- A Pernicious Rumour: The Winston 'impersonator'
- Style over Substance: Hitler's demagogic oratory
- The Bully Pulpit and the Fireside Chat: FDR's presidential style
- 5 Service Slang
- Can We Have Our Pilot Back, Please?: Blood chits/Goolie chits
- Odd Bods: Chad and Kilroy
- Steam Chickens and Flying Coffins: Aircraft nicknames
- Whispering Campaign: Scuttlebutt/Furphy/Elsan gen/Sibs
- Swearing Like Troopers: C**t cap/Shit on a shingle/Effing and blinding
- 6 National Stereotypes
- 'A Horrible Sight': 'Goose-stepping'
- Name-Calling: Nazi/Eyetie/Wop/Nip, etc.
- Adolf Hitler, Rah, Rah, Rah!: the 'Hitler greeting'
- 7 Food and Drink
- 'Food Will Win the War': Woolton Pie/snoek/British Restaurants
- Boozing for Britain: the 'Berkeley Stinger'
- 'Don't Mind the Worms': 'Dig for Victory'/Victory gardens
- Loved and Loathed: Spam®
- Cat's Eyes and Carrolade: 'Dr Carrot'
- Disgusting Fare: 'A.M.'
- 8 Coded Language: Abbreviations, Acronyms, Codewords and Operational Terms
- Make it Snappy: Military acronyms
- The Semantics of Secrecy: WOTAN/Freya Apparatus
- Condemned Out of their Own Mouths: Tongue-twisters
- Scourge of the East?: Operation Barbarossa
- Clued In: The 'D-Day' crosswords
- A Corporal and a Dauber: 'the Bohemian corporal'/'the dauber, the (house) painter'
- Short but not so Sweet: Spoof acronyms
- The Compliment that Backfired: 'the Greatest Commander of All Time'
- The Red Tsar: Stalin/Uncle Joe/Vozhd
- Winston and the Cross he had to Bear: Winnie/'Two Metres'
- 9 Military Hardware
- 'A Drink to go with the Food': 'Molotov cocktail'
- A Terrible Prophecy: 'Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind'
- Foiled Again: Chaff/Window
- Eccentric but Effective: Hobart's Funnies
- Herr Meier's Empty Boast: 'V-weapons'
- 10 Wartime Slogans
- The Unholy Trinity: 'Work, family, fatherland'
- The Popular Poster That Never Was: 'Keep Calm and Carry On'
- Fighting Talk: 'Anyone who surrenders is an executioner!'
- Bad Blood: 'Blood and Soil'
- A Political Purgative: 'Castor Oil and the Bludgeon'
- 11 The Home Front
- Dial 'A' for Aryan: 'language purification'
- Cooper's Snoopers and the Nun with the Stubble: Fifth Column
- A Medieval Throwback: Gau/Gauleiter
- Lost in Translation: 'to get yourself called Arthur'
- Lines of Defence: Pillboxes
- Springtime for Hitler: 'Leader's weather'
- Big Brother Is Watching You: 'Death's Head'
- Historic Destruction: The Baedeker raids
- Laughter in the Dark: 'whispered jokes'
- Digging In: 'Paddock'/'Eagle's Eyrie'/'Wolf's Lair'
- Strutting Coxcombs: 'golden pheasants'
- 12 Enemy Aliens
- Imperial Sacrifice: Kamikaze/Banzai
- Symbol of Authority: Fasci di Combattimento
- Bywords for Treachery: quisling/Pétainism/Vichy
- Storm and Strafe: 'storm troopers'/'field-grey'/'punish (strafe)'
- Doing Time: Stalag/Gulag
- 13 People and Places
- Rallying Point: Nuremberg/Nazi Party Congresses
- Three Men and their Sheds: Anderson shelter/Morrison shelter/Nissen hut
- A Defiant Detour: the 'capital city of the movement'/Shirkers' Alley
- The Final Summit: Yalta
- 'Germany Calling': Lord Haw-Haw
- Paean to a Pimp: the Horst Wessel Song
- Living on in Infamy: Pearl Harbor
- Tit for Tat: 'to coventrate'
- Perfidious Albion?: Mers-el-Kébir
- The Swiss Fifth Column: Wilhelm Gustloff
- 14 Racial Policy and Genocide
- Marked out for Murder: 'the Yellow Patch' (Jewish Star)
- France's Shame: round-up/police swoop
- Glossing over Genocide: euphemisms for mass murder
- RJF RIP: Laying the Soap Myth to Rest: 'State Agency for Industrial Fat Supply'
- Spirited Away: 'Night and Fog Decree'
- Homilies of Hatred: 'To Each His Own'/'Work Sets You Free'
- 15 Aftermath
- Twelve Guilty Men: Nuremberg Trials/genocide
- Swords into Ploughshares?: The Morgenthau Plan/'the Nero Order'
- A Whiter Wash: 'a Persil certificate'
- Summary Justice: 'brutal purge'
- Voice of the People: Mass Observation
- State of Stasis: Cold War
- Language of Mass Destruction: The Nuclear Age
- Sunlit Uplands: The Beveridge Report/Welfare State
- Resetting the Clock: 'Zero Hour'/'coming to terms with the past'
- A Craving for Culture: CEMA/The Third Programme
- New World Order: Bretton Woods/NATO/European Union
- 'Don't Mention the War!': Germanophobia
- Bibliography
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
- Z
