G.I.

[jester at PANIX.COM]

>
> I sent some of the recent discussion about _jeep_ to my brother, who just
> retired from the Army. He thanks you all and adds: Another is "G.I.",
> which originally stood for "Galvanized Iron" which
> was stamped into the bottoms of government garbage cans as early as 1936,
> later used to describe the folks that cleaned them out with soap and high
> pressure hoses.
>
> I had always thought G.I. stood for Gov't Issue, but, upon checking
> Wentworth/Flexner, DAS, find a reference to _G.I. can_, (that is, my
> brother's definition) with a date of ca.  1920; the 'Gov't Issue' meaning
> goes back to about 1935. Is there any more information about either of
> these?

As discussed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of
American Slang, _G.I._ was a semiofficial abbreviation for
"Galvanized Iron" by 1907 at latest; the reinterpretation as
"Government Issue" didn't happen until 1917.

Jesse Sheidlower
Oxford English Dictionary