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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 1793.PDF
JULY 15TH, 1943 Topics of the Day 61 The Psychology of Slang Qood and Bad Nicknames in the Service : The Propaganda Effect of Ingeniously Humorous Expressions : Keeping Our Sense of Proportion eengton has IN the midst of a lot of quite dignified slang and reallyexcellent phrases, some of which will long outlive thiswar, the Air Force has coined some really atrocious words' and gone in for some awful mannerisms. Not the least abominable of these mannerisms—if such it can be called—is that of shortening, in a friendly way, nearly ail the excellent 'names which have been applied to the various aircraft types in service. And I mean mechanical types, of course, not merely the various human types jisbC make up the Service as such, f,"*" A year or two ago mogr of the pet namej/Uad some humorous and complicated basis of interest to the more serious-minded student of word-formation and develop- ment. What could be more interestingyfor instance, than the word "Wimpy"—or, perhaps, " Whimpey" ? Though painful, no doubt, to the? earnest/1 people who, sitting round a board-room table, produ^d with mucl iilabour the name Wellington, the word, aeverth a special interest of its own. JNho,, oupile th would have imagined that the picknairyfe coVld hVye developed from a strange littlfe chara/ter, fN W Whimpey, (or Wimpy), of strip |fame? vTha£ p\ a tou^rof genius about it. \. | Even " Hurribird" was not \too bad, ^ii^it" has certain violence which can tell itk story, while "Maggie" and "Lizzie" have a safe and\friendly sound. Th earlier abbreviations were not so rirach abbreviatiops^as extensions of an explanatory nature, anry possibly mind them. In fact, at the back of my mind, if only I could remember them, there are a whole lot of really ingenious names for the different types which were in circulation at or near the beginning of the war. Maybe people had more time and more- ingenuity in those days. *** 'But the present-day habit or merely shortening, and of adding a diminutive or loving^ suffix to the result, takes a lot of bearing with—even if people are in such a hurry that they cannot find the time or the energy to produce the whole, and generally excellent, word. Nothing could be much more expressive of the nature and use of the beast than the name Mosquito, a quick-moving and hard- biting insect. What have the ruffians reduced it to? "Mossie" . . . " Mossie" . . . For heaven's sake! It immediately becomes a soft and friendly, almost inani- mate beast. Friendly it is, except to our enemies, but it is certainly not inanipd/te and not even particularly com- fortable to sit in for long periods. "Lanks" and " Beaus " The Lancaster has become a merely feeble "Lank, ' the Beaufighter has become the "Beau," or even, heaven help us all, the "Bowey," and the Defiant a "Diffy." One can, in all kindness, find excuses or even produce reasons why the shortened versions are good in themselves. The Lancaster is, after all, a lanky device and covers great distances in big and, perhaps, ungainly strides ;. the word '' Beau '' has something of a bite and quickness of its own ; and the Defiant has now become a friendly affair used for simple little non-operational jobs. But " Bowey " No! Some, even, a/^T quite accidentally, not too bad. The " Lib " doesn't make a bad Liberator—and the word Liberator is, perhaps, just a shade too self-consciously priggish for a destroyer; the '' Fort" is a vigorous and stable Fortress; the "Cat" is a meaningful and more agile Catalina. Thank goodness—at least, to my knowledge—the Mitchell is not called the " Mitch," the Sunderland the "Sundae," the Typhoon the "Time," the Halifax the "Hallie," theOxford the " Oxy " and the Thunderbolt the "Thundy." By all means call the last a " 'Bolt" or a " Thunderbird "if you like—or even a "'Blitzenbird." Such appellations are in keeping with the true spirit of nicknames, whichshould be more telling-than the original and have a certain degree of humoroujnTuggestion. For instance—to producefgestions—one can decently call a Sunder- land a " Sundjfeea " or " Tyneboat," a Halifax a " Woolifax," ancLJine ftxford a " Nuffield Trainer"—shortening each accjKlinglyj until nobody who isn't in the swim canhow the silly little word has been reached. /'Whimpey " used to keep a lot of people nicknames, and the accompanying Service expres-ions, have, i/think, a far more considerable propaganda leflfcct than ijr generally realised. The Germans are andalways hava^been rattled—one can use no other word—by the carefre/ English manner. While they are trying sohard and/raking things so very seriously it gives them a curious^ense of inferiority when their enemies—who mustbe tak/fo seriously—refuse to begin to take the war or their nghfrng machines as anything much more than a joke inramer bad taste. Serio-Comic Insults Those who have read "The Last Enemy " will remem- ber how the scratch boat-race team irritated everyone so profoundly when they refused to take the thing seriously. It was almost an insult to be so happy-go-lucky when the German team was working itself into a froth over its training schedule. It was even more disturbing when the scratch team miraculously won—just as it must be dis- turbing to be bombed by a " Whimpey " (perhaps labelled Pansy) or shot down by a "Mossie." I was fiddling about on some skis in Austria in the winter before the war and the same feeling of irritation was produced by the be- haviour of the two or three British entrants in the Slalom. Apart from one woman—who should have won fhe female section but fell on the last turn—these entrants started for the fun of the thing and fell consistently the whole way down. It wasn't that they weren't good, but merely that they couldn't possibly put in the necessary practice to beat the pros., yet saw no reason why they shouldn't have their fun. It was significant that the only German entrants were people who stood a very reasonable chance of winning. I sometimes feel like writing a large opus on the im- portance of this national characteristic of treating every- thing but the essential matters of living, loving and dying, as a sort of joke (and, I repeat, in rather bad taste). Because it is the only characteristic which we can use to beat the Axis and keep level with the rest of the world in the peace which will eventually follow the war. It is not really important that we (or anybody else) should produce the best or the cheapest of any commodity, but it is important that we should be liked and respected, that we should continue to enjoy our world for what it is and with no absurd illusions about Herrenvolh or what-not, and that we should not lose our sense of proportion and become a nation of go-getters, face-grinders arid hard- working little prigs. Let us work hard at things we like to do—for the fun of working and for no other reason ; let us regain our old reputation for fairness and generosity and good nature ; and let us make our own country and Empire the kind of places where other people would be
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