The language used in the WWI trenches combined humour and understatement. Many of the words are still in use today, and have become part of the Aussie lingo eg:
Kip: to sleep
Clobber: clothing (from Yiddish)
Cold feet: fear
Cakehole: mouth
Dead soldier: empty beer bottle
Kaput: finished, broken (from German)
Thunderbox: toilet
Howler: a big mistake
Many slang words were anglicised French, Hindustani or Arabic words eg:
Dooly, doolay: milk (from French du lait)
Char: tea (from Hindustani cha, chai)
Japan: bread (from French du pain)
Rooti: bread (from Hindustani roti)
Erf, oof: egg (from French oeuf)
Tray beans: very well (from French tres bien)
Tray bong: very good (from French tres bon)
Umpty poo: a little bit more (from French un petit peu)
Other terms of interest include:
(Axle) grease: butter (a rare treat in the trenches)
Babbler: a cook (from rhyming slang, babbling brook)
Bangalore torpedo: a length of sheet steel folded like a drainpipe and stuffed with explosive to blow a path through barbed wire
Banjo: a shovel
Bantam, Banty: a short soldier
Big Bertha: a long range German gun (from Bertha Krupp, heiress to the industrial dynasty that owned Germany’s biggest manufacturer of munitions)
Billy Wells: heavy artillery (from Billy Wells, an English soldier who was a champion heavyweight boxer)
Chats, Crabs: lice
Chat bags: underpants
Vermijelli: a mixture of oil, soap and water used for killing chats
Chin parade: an inspection to check if men had shaved properly
Choker: a cigarette
Daisies: boots (from rhyming slang, daisy roots)
Egg: a hand grenade
Exasperator: a respirator gas mask – awkward to fit, awkward to wear
Flying matinee: a trench raid carried out in daylight
Fruit salad: two or more rows of medal ribbons worn on the tunic
Gut’s horn: the bugle call that announced meal times
Hard tack, dog biscuit: Army ration biscuit, sometimes used as kindling
Soft tack: bread
Iron ration: a tinned meal and four dog biscuits
Mother, Grandma, Granny: all purpose nickname for a British heavy gun
Paint: jam
Pig’s ear: beer (from rhyming slang)
Pill: a bomb dropped from an aircraft
Pipsqueak: a rifle grenade
Sling the bat, parlay the bat: to talk the language of the native population (from French parlar, to talk, and Hindustani bat, language)
Wet rations: mud
Wooden overcoat: coffin
Signalese was the language used by Army signallers; a coded alphabet which became a part of Army vernacular:
A Ack
B Beer
D Don
M Emma
P Pip
S Esses
T Toc
V Vic
Hence:
Toc Emma = TM = trench mortar
Emma Gee = MG = machine gun
Ack Emma = AM = morning
Nationalities:
Aussie, Digger: an Australian
Belgie: a Belgian
Byng boy, Canuck: a Canadian
Boche, Fritz, Jerry, Hun: a German
Doughboy, Yank: an American soldier
Frog, Froggie: a French person
Fernleaf: a New Zealander
Ivan: a Russian
Jock: a Scot
Tommy: a British soldier
* Moore, Christopher 2012, Roger, sausage & whippet: a miscellany of trench lingo from the Great War, Headline, London, UK.
