Airline Slang

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/13/03 12:12:02 PM Eastern Standard Time,
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:

> >For a couple of years I did a weekly radio show with a woman who had been
>  >a flight attendant. After the show we would always go out for "crew tea".
>  >On a short layover, they were not allow to drink, so every airport
>  >waitress knew how to serve crew tea -- tea cups and a tea pot full of
>  >beer.
>  >
>  Ah, another ironym!  Some crew tea to wash down the Welsh rabbit and
>  prairie oysters.

I fail to see how "crew tea" is an ironym.  It is purely a "code word"
(actually a "code phrase") to communicate to the waitress (or waiter?) a
request to enter into a conspiracy to violate Federal Air Regulations
91.17(a)(1),  The phrase "Crew tea" is not used ironically; it is used for
the sake of deception.

On the other hand "Virgin Mary", referring to a Bloody Mary minus the vodka,
is an ironym. "Welsh rabbit" was also coined out of a sense of irony, as a
commentary on the economic situation prevailing at one time in Wales.

"Prairie oyster" is a euphemism.

A note on "Bloody Mary" (the drink).  MWCD10 gives a date of "1947" (and to
my surprise qualifies the etymology as "prob." from Mary Tudor).  In 1957
John Steinbeck wrote a satirical novel "The Short Reign of Pippin IV", set in
the soon-to-be-defunct French Fourth Republic.  A minor element in the book
is the "Marie Blessee" ("wounded Mary") which is a Bloody Mary prepared by a
Francophone.  The French, according to Steinbeck, are not familiar with Mary
I Tudor and had to translate the English "Bloody Mary" into their own
cultural (i.e. Catholic) and linguistic milieu.

If the M-W date of 1947 is correct, and if Steinbeck did not make the thing
up, we have the interesting case of the name of a (supposedly) new alcoholic
drink in less than ten years getting translated, not into Franglais, but into
French.

        - James A. Landau
          systems engineer
          FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI)
          Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA