"cootie" Australian slang? 1917-18?

[Jonathan Lighter]

While Australians too spoke of "cooties" in WWI, nothing much can be
inferred from this.
http://www.anu.edu.au/ANDC/res/aus_words/wwi/OrigC.php

JL
On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 4:17 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      "cootie" Australian slang? 1917-18?
>
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>
> FWIW, unverified google-snippetwise, putatively from The Marines
> Magazine vol. 3, 1917 p. 60 [col. 1](NYPL has v.3 as Dec. 1917-Nov. 1918; a
> running head shows The Marines Magazine, though the small title page image
> does
> not look right:
>
> and the men there sooner or later have experiences with 'cooties,' which is
> trench lingo for plain, ordinary louse of the grayback variety. These
> foreign
> "cooties" seem to have exceedingly sharp teeth or some instrument of
> warfare
> that makes a mosquito bite seem mild in comparison.
> If a "cootie"--the word, I believe, is Australian slang and may have been
> brought here from the Antipodes...
> {same page?:]
> Suddenly a 'cootie' made its presence known in the small of his back and he
> ...
> ...Lester Elliott, an Australian who saw service at Gallipoli and on the
> Somme,
> is now in this country on a tour assisting in recruiting and in Red Cross
> work.
> ...
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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