WAR WORDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 71, 23 March 1918, Page 13

WAR WORDS.

COLOURING THE KING'S ENGLISH. (By Professor Ernest Weekley, Head of Modern Languages Department! University College, Nottingham). "The r f war leaves a deposit of words invented for hew circumstances, endowed with new meanings, or borrowed from friend and foe. It is not easy to prophesy what will be the contribution to our language ot the war of the "Scrap of Paper." We may assume that the latter phrase will go down to history as German for treaty, just as "Hun," and "German," Kultur" and "savagery" will be for our grandchildren interchangeable terms. Other gifts from the enemy are ".rightfulness," translating "schreckli.hkeit," officially used of the Louvain bestialities, and the comic "hate" and "strafe." "Spurious vereenken" is too Teutonic for adoption, but -will survive as an ironic comment on the canting "freedom of 4-he seas," a phrase coined just after the Lusitania massacre.

If pride of birth survives the great upheaval, we may imagine that "Came over with the Conqueror" will take second place to "One of the Contemptibles." When the Kaiser spoke of the "verachtliche kleine armee" he scarcely realised that he was enriching the hated language with the word destined to become its proudest epithet. • ,

The psychologist will recognise in the character of our borrowings from German that incurably humorous scorn for the enemy which has always made the British soldier invincible in the long run. There is more than accident in the contrast between our homely "bus" for an aeroplane, "The Trade" for the submarine service,'" "over the top" for the supreme test of manhood, and the pretentious Jtomfoolery of the "Siegfried line," "storm-troops," "the mailed fist," "iron will to victory," "steel hard resolution," and the rest of the. Kaiser's rhetorical ironmongery.

Of our own coinage the earliest and most expressive is "profiteer," for one who levies blackmail on the nation's need- Some think that "munitioraeer" runs it fairly close. "Baby-killer"—Ger-man naval or aeronautical hero—dates from the bombardment of ScarboroughMany words have taken a new colour from war time. It will be long before "hoard" and "queue" cease to evoke the image of sugar or margarine; while "Tank" and even "Tankmanship" have become permanent elements of our military vocabulary. "Conscientious," "Conchy," and the grotesquely formed "pacifist" stand a fair chance of.joining "profiteer."

Our chivalrous Allies have given us "barrage," replacing "curtain-fire." Its usual French meaning is weir. "Napoo," already used for "inconclusive" by eminent writers is an attempt at "il ny a plus."

, "Boche" for "Alboche," a slang perversion of "Allemand," was a familiar word in the Latin' Quarter thirty years ago. It will become an invective term in English, just as the epithet "ruddy Bolshevik" has already caught the ear in a street row. _

The. most famous of war words, "Blighty," is borrowed from the Indian troops. ' It is the Hindustani adjective "bilati," from Arabic "wilayat," government, from "wali," governor, and has long been applied to anything connected with Britain. "Nor the Sahibs use the 'balaitee panee' (soda water) when they are thirsty."—Kipling, "The Smith Administration," 1887. But the chief effect of the war on the language will be in metaphor. AYe already call an unexpected visit a "raid," a determined effort a "push," ou. sanctuii! a "dug-out," and the lady of the house the "Food Controller." When the boys come home they will speak, and their children will learn, a figurative language which will colour the King's English as it has not been coloured since Conquest.