Another one from Cecil...

[Bruce Dykes]

This time he addresses the jeep ("Hello jeep!"):

Dear Cecil:

I've been following an online discussion about the origin of the WWII
vehicle commonly known as a jeep. I had long believed that these vehicles
were once officially referred to as "general purpose" vehicles--"GP" for
short. In time the letters became slurred together and the name "jeep"
evolved. However, according to jeep historians, the above story is a fairy
tale. The most accepted theory among these folks has something to do with a
character from the Popeye cartoon. Do you have any insight on this? --Chris
Mancusi, Silver Spring, Maryland

Cecil replies:

I'm not saying I know for certain what the origin of jeep is, but I'm pretty
sure I know what it ain't--namely, an elision of GP. (For one thing, the
jeep wasn't general purpose--it was designed for reconnaissance.) What we
now call a jeep was actually the last of several vehicles to bear that
nickname. By one account, the name jeep originally was used by motor pool
mechanics in World War I to refer to any new vehicle received for testing.
It was also applied derisively to the more hapless recruits. Be that as it
may, the term was little known outside the military until March 16, 1936,
when a character called Eugene the Jeep was introduced in Elzie Segar's
popular Thimble Theater comic strip, home of Popeye. Eugene was a doglike
critter who subsisted on orchids and had the ability to travel between
dimensions and solve complex problems. The Jeep tickled the public's fancy
and his name was soon applied to a host of things, including an oil
exploration vehicle, a prototype of the B-17 bomber, a military tractor, a
type of truck, and so on.

Finally, in 1940, the military commissioned the manufacture of a
four-wheel-drive scout car. A test driver for Willys-Overland, one of the
makers of the new vehicle, drove one up the steps of the U.S. Capitol as a
publicity stunt in early 1941. When asked by a reporter what the vehicle was
called, the driver, Irving "Red" Haussman, said it was a jeep. The press
popularized the term, and within a short time
jeep-as-funny-looking-four-by-four had supplanted all other uses of the
name. Just so you know, a version of the jeep made by Ford did have the
letters "GP" in its designation. But the G stood for "government" and the P
was a code indicating an 80-inch wheelbase, not general purpose. In any case
the name "jeep" had been around long before, and its origin had nothing to
do with "GP."

--CECIL ADAMS