26.2476, Review: Lang Doc; Lexicography; Socioling: Dalzell (2014)

Thu May 14 02:23:04 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2476. Wed May 13 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.2476, Review: Lang Doc; Lexicography; Socioling: Dalzell (2014)

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Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 22:22:31
From: J. Barnes [jodyleebarnes at gmail.com]
Subject: Vietnam War Slang

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-3069.html

AUTHOR: Tom  Dalzell
TITLE: Vietnam War Slang
SUBTITLE: A Dictionary on Historical Principles
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: J. L Barnes, (personal interest - not currently working at a university)

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

Tom Dalzell’s “Vietnam War Slang: A Dictionary on Historical Principles” is
exactly what it says on the tin; that is, a dictionary of slang words and
phrases in common use during the Vietnam War.   It is arranged as one would
expect a dictionary to be: a few brief introductory materials followed by a
listing of words and definitions.  It is a slim volume, running only 200
pages, including the introductory note, a guide to using the dictionary’s
entries, a preface, the definitions, and a list of sources.  Each definition
includes the part of speech, various senses in which the word may be used,
country of origin, date, and in some cases, a citation, that is, a quote from
a primary source (often a work of fiction) utilizing the word.  

The definitions throughout the book can generally be placed into a handful of
categories. Obviously, most of the terms are military-related.  Many terms
relate specifically to the realities of day-to-day life in Vietnam during the
war.  These include nicknames for military divisions, based upon their
insignias:  “Red Diamond” (128), for example, is the nickname for the Fifth
Infantry Division and is derived from their simple insignia.  Other military
nicknames referred to popular or infamous locations: the “Hanoi Hilton” (75)
and other prisoner of war camps were often given ironic nicknames revealing
the true feelings of the soldiers: “Go To Hell” for Go Dau Ha, site of a US
Naval Base (70), or “Purple Heart Trail” for the main highway into Saigon
(123).

Further military-themed entries include a number of abbreviations and
acronyms, often based upon the phonetic alphabet.   One (commonly-known)
example is “VC” or “Victor Charlie” for “Viet-Cong” (159).  Often, these
abbreviations are twisted into new terms, such as “Whiskey Papa”, from “WP”,
shorthand for a white phosphorous grenade (162).  Soldiers in Vietnam were
also apparently fond of alliteration, as in the aforementioned “Hanoi Hilton”
as well as “jamming jenny,” (a not-so-complimentary nickname for the
ubiquitous M-16 rifle) (88). The insulting nature of many terms is exemplified
by a number of racial slurs against the Vietnamese: “spook”, “zip”, “gook”,
and others.  

In his introduction, Dalzell notes that there are a number of reasons for the
use of darkly humorous and often obscene terminology.  What they all have in
common is an attempt to form an “in-group language,” as part of a larger
“positive, collective identity,” (x). Terms like “butt-fuck”, (meaning “to
attack from the rear”) (25), were prevalent, often combined with other aspects
of, especially playing with abbreviations and acronyms: “CUNT”-  “civilian
under naval training” (40), and “organized chicken shit” for “OCS” (“Officer
Candidate School”, showing what most enlisted men thought of their officers)
(114) are just a few examples.  Other notable items include those related to
the medical problems soldiers faced during the war – mostly venereal disease
(“pecker checker” and “penis machinist” as terms for medical personnel whose
job was to check for symptoms) (116), or malaria.  A number of terms for the
daily anti-malarial pills taken by personnel can be found throughout
(“all-purpose capsule” (1), “Monday pill” (105), and “red bomb” (128), among
others.)  

Many words found in the book are of French or Vietnamese origin, or
corruptions of French and Vietnamese terms.  “Boocoo” for  the French
“beaucoup” (17),  “cockadau” from the Vietnamese for murder (36), and the
Vietnamese “sin loi” for “I’m sorry” (139), to name just a few.  There are
also a large amount of terms referring to American actor John Wayne, due to
the number of war films in which he appeared.  These terms are sometimes
negative (in some cases, “John Wayne” acts as a verb meaning to act
recklessly), or neutral (as a nickname for a can opener), but never positive
(89-90).  Finally, there are a number of terms that build upon other slang
usage – such as the “birdbath”, where military vehicles, especially
helicopters (referred to as “birds”, (11)) were washed (12).

EVALUATION

While “Vietnam War Slang” is, taken as a whole, a useful volume, there are a
few questionable aspects.   Primarily, there is no real indication of what
criteria were used for inclusion in the text.  While the terms themselves seem
to have been chosen because of their prevalence in the speech and writing of
soldiers in the war, many of the terms predate the Vietnam War, or were in
common use outside of it.  There are terms like “arty” for “artillery”, dating
from the U.S. Civil War (3), on the one hand, and on the other, “Rambo,” from
the series of action films that began in 1982.  The inclusion of these terms,
as well as a number of other general military terms, is somewhat confusing. 
Also included in the text are a number of terms that are widely used outside
of the military.  “Bubbler” for water fountain, “hit the sack” meaning to go
to bed, and “horn” for telephone are all commonly used in everyday life (to
varying degrees), but Dalzell makes no attempt to justify their inclusion
here.

The other major problem with Dalzell’s text is the omission of information
that one expects to find in any other dictionary.  Entries lack any guide to
pronunciation or stress, and while this isn’t a problem for many of the more
common words, an occasional entry, such as “fugazi” or “Rakkasans” appears,
which may leave those who have never heard the term scratching their heads.
The lack of any cross-references is also particularly glaring. Though “slant”
and “slope” are both pejorative terms for Vietnamese, there is no notation in
either entry pointing out this synonymy.  Similarly, the numerous different
words for malaria pills mentioned above contain no cross-referencing, nor do
the myriad terms using “Charlie” as a term for the Viet Cong, or the numerous
nicknames for standard C-rations, (including “biscuit” and “C’s”.)

There are more minor inconsistencies throughout the text as well.  Following
the alphabetically-indexed definitions is a section for entries beginning with
numbers, but there are also entries beginning with numbers in their proper
positions throughout the alphabetical listings.  Additionally, there are
individual entries with problematic definitions.  “Troll” is given as a noun,
but the definition given is for the verb form (155). The definition for “P-38”
(the aforementioned “John Wayne” can opener) is puzzling: it notes that this
is “a humorous application of bureaucratic nomenclature,” (115), but there is
nothing in the entry to tell us why this is particularly humorous, or more
humorous than any other use of military terminology.

As a lexicon of words limited to a specific place and time, this book is
similarly limited as to its prospective audience.  The most obvious audience
would be those interested in the history of the American military,
specifically the Vietnam War.  One obviously small group of people to whom the
book would appeal is those writing works of fiction set in Vietnam during the
war.  Indeed, as mentioned above, many of the citations throughout the text
come from novels and films.  However, navigation of the text for anything
other than finding the definition of a term is difficult.  If one, for
example, wanted to find different terms for, say, ground transport vehicles,
the best method of doing so would be to go through the book word-by-word and
take note of all of the vehicles of this type that one comes across. There’s
simply no other way to gain this kind of information.  Ultimately, however,
“Vietnam War Slang” is a book that’s extremely good for what it is.  Those
expecting an academic lexicon of thoroughly researched and sourced terms might
find it lacking, but it serves its purpose as a helpful guide to navigating
the slang of the Vietnam War.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

J. L. Barnes is a philosophy and linguistics graduate currently residing in
the Louisville, KY area. Areas of interest include semantics, philosophy of
language, semiotics, and the relationship between music and language.

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