"FEMALE SHELL HAND."

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 91, 23 May 1916, Page 2

"FEMALE SHELL HAND."

j SOME MUNITION SLANG. jllY ONE WHO HAS LEAR Mi IT ' (Ireat events iu Irstory a n<« vocabulary to «, languagc'(u rites .Munm Co.sens in 'The Daily Mail'). "I'll.event in my lit'* has brought m>- ;i inn vocabulary. 1 ami what is called n "female shell hand''; at, least that i> ! how 1 am described by the >,<)!ti-li , clerk who distributes carefully uertlrr! | and neatly written notices 111 n><! ink 011 white paper, the only white Oimg , in the factory. According to my own mind, tlmugh, , I am a shell machinist, or a lathe <>[*«• ■ tor, cither of which titles strike* m.. as I being more dignified, but not u H , di<;iKI fied to prevent, me from revelling 11. jtid ' using the colloquialisms umm| In my ! fellow-workers. When 1 signed on, to nic a ia't-m was a factory, not a "shop": j I was "a ring to with' ; a shell cut by accident small to bo of any use was a shell sailed—not a "scrap"; and the spa'-e !«•- twecu tho machinery nin a not a "street," _\\hat a novice I was in those ilays! No I should no more dream <■! using anything but the jargon of th,.- i:»'t«ry than it jmblic-school boy would rlrpain of atsing anything but the school jlanj after two terms' association with it. At tho beginning I had to learn tlnn» expressions which might the morn w enrately be des<'ribed as technical tirnv My first moment of came when I picked up a shell—thai was when I was working on "iV' bases'' (an operation which reduces the length <if the shell at the closed tii'land found 1 could not work on it ' appealed to what I then called the nnchanic but since have learnt to know as a "setter-up.' 1 I "Oh, that's no use," he said, that's a. dump." "A what?'' 1 asked, f "lts got to go back to the fomi'lry Then I understood. A "duii'i* 11 «s 1 *hell which has to l>e remouirl"!. j There came a morning when ' <t f ' ' rived mid found the girl on the *»• chine next to mine not there. 1 "What's happened to Violet * 1 ii' quired. I was told she had hurt her hand "Got caught up iir her belt" '.us tb phraso u.sed to me. Belt only (vnivcycd ■ to me the patent leather belt she vr? ' round her waist, a nd it was quit- a time beforo 1 real'sed it was tii,. WtJug of the machine, which I knew : !l my ignorant mind as the "Mr«;'" had been responsible lor the and not Violet's harmless paten: :«-;itH one. I confess that I laughed when I a friend working on a pro<u.v> necessitated turning on-a tan ,v»! P° ,jr ' iug what to me looked- Jiko dir'y wa*- r over a shell as she was cutting it. "What a horrible mess!" I cida®' ed. ''ls it reallji necessary to filthy stuff?' 1 ' s 1 She drew herself up with dign tv. allocking at me with scorn and liei'/hw ed eyebrows remarked frigidly: i "That's mystic." And she. was quite annoyed at m - T mirth, because I could not see .-itiythtn? mystic (that is how it is spelt. I !*" least, that is how 1 spelt in my mind.) in the diru liqwewhich is nothing more myfiterKnH thas practical soap and water. I found that "mystic ' is used to cool the knu* —no, it is not called a knife, althouf it is sharp and cuts, and looks h* 6 one, but a "tool" —when the opert: tion necessitates a ©-eat thick new. ™ material to b« severw,