"Wet dry run" (1943)

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Mon Jun 28 02:58:15 UTC 2004


By 1943, "a dry run" already meant "a practice run" (rather than "a run
without water being thrown", the earlier firefighters' sense).

So what would one call a practice run which included throwing water?

"A wet dry run"?

http://www.stripes.com/ww2/stories/rooney08.html

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_Stars and Stripes_, 17 March 1943:

[AIr base crash team]

<<There aren't any brass poles, and no false alarms, but there is plenty of
authentic firehouse atmosphere around the place. Regularly the crash crews
go tearing out on a dry run; once in a while they empty the 400-gallon tank
on their truck in a wet dry run.>>

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-- Doug Wilson



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