Rape Town, Gangster's Paradise (GP) and more

[Jerome Foster]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at earthlink.net>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: Rape Town, Gangster's Paradise (GP) and more


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Rape Town, Gangster's Paradise (GP) and more
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> On Apr 25, 2004, at 9:17 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Rape Town, Gangster's Paradise (GP) and more
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> >
> >> "SHORT ARM INSPECTION ... My military friend here gave me this."
> >
> > "Short arms" means handguns (pistols, revolvers, etc.) AFAIK. There is
> > of
> > course a double-entendre. I don't know that "short arm" by itself has
> > currency as a serious (even slangy-serious) anatomical term, but
> > probably
> > it's been used humorously in the military, following the inspection.
> >
> > Then of course there's "short arms, deep pockets" which is unrelated
> > (I think).
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
> >
>
> Having served in the US Army in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties, I can say
> that, in our military, the "short-arms inspection" is just an empty
> joke, having to do with the "fact" that anyone thus inspected and found
> to have VD is given a shot of penicillin in his left testicle with a
> hypodermic having a square needle the size of a railroad spike. Call:
> "Short-arm inspection!" Response: "Square needle in the left nut!"
> followed by general laughter. During Basic Training, it was used as a
> tension-breaker, ritualized to the extent that, normally, only the
> response was used, since the term "short arm" was totally meaningless,
> having long since lost its currency, if it ever had any, in the US
> Army. Would a red-blooded, gung-ho, American infantryman - Call:
> "Infantry! Queen (yes, it is somewhat incongruous) of battle! What is
> the meaning of 'infantry'?! Response: "Kill!!" - refer to his penis as
> "short"? In the words of Noam Chomsky, "I think not." Regular soldiers
> carry only some form of long arm, e.g. carbine, rifle, machine gun, for
> which the general term is "weapon," hence, "weapons inspection" as the
> sole term, devoid of any secondary meaning.
> After I'd been in the Army about two years, I came to know an armorer
> and heard the term, "long arm," allowing me to intuit the meaning of
> "short arm."
>
> -Wilson
>

As a former red-blooded (though not very gung ho) infantryman of WWII I can
attest to the use of "short arm inspection" as a real practice. Once a week
or so during basic training we lined up, wearing raincoats only and a medic
went down the line and we had to "milk it down" presumably if we had a
venereal disease some evil liquid would be exuded from the penis. The
equivalent practice for Wacs (Women's Army Corps) was, perhaps apocryphally,
known as "foxhole inspection." It very obviously was a play on weapons
inspection when our long weapons, rifles, were checked for dust and rust.

J. Foster, ex-rifleman