Jolly Roger

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:28 PM -0400 7/31/02, James A. Landau wrote:
>In a message dated 7/31/02 2:58:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>laurence.horn at YALE.EDU quotes:
>
>>   Is he any relation to the "Roger" who is continually being evoked by
>>   fighter pilots and other military types?
>>
>>   Jolly Roger bears no relation to Roger Wilco
>
>The people Laurence Horn are quoting are wrong here.
>
>"Roger" used by a pilot is not specific to the military.  Civilian pilots use
>the same terminology.  The delusion that it is military is caused by there
>being so many more movies about fighter pilots than about airliner pilots or
>for that matter bomber pilots.
>
Hah.  Caught the usually reliable Cecil Adams in a blooper (echoing
his correspondent, but he's the one who gets paid to know better, and
he usually does).  Actually, the correspondent didn't SAY "Roger" for
affirmatives was limited to "military types", so the statement in his
relative clause may well be true.  The move from "Roger" to "Roger
Wilco" is CA's, and from what Jim says clearly misguided.

I'm still curious about "Jolly Roger", though...


L