Air Force Language (1962); Medical Slang (1994)

[Jonathon Green]

In (self) defence: Medical Slang is wonderful (and cruel) but I categorise
it as jargon, i.e. occupation/pofessional 'slang'. Thus I bypassed it in the
Cassell DOS. I do have a good deal of it, including some of this, I believe,
in my _Dictionary of Jargon_ (RKP 1986). Military stuff, especially, as can
often be the case, where it crosses over into the world of civilians, is
more difficult to categorise. On the whole I would, for instance, put in
'grunt', which 'came home' as it were with Vietnam Vets but not, to pluck at
random from Gregory Clark's _Words of the Vietnam War_, 'Malaysian Whip' (a
form of booby trap) which belongs very much to the field. One can see
similar usages that an earlier generation, e.g. that of WW2, brought back
from their own service into civilian life; my father, for instance, would
always prefer 'burgoo' - in fact an Indian Army term from late 19C - to
'porridge.

Jonathon Green