Military jargon

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 18, 2004, at 6:32 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Military jargon
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> Seems to me that the usual actions designated by "selling" and
> "buying" are here reversed.
>
> JL

Yes. That's probably why it got weird for Doug when he started to think
about it.

-Wilson Gray

>
> "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
> Subject: Re: Military jargon
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>
>> Q. I'm selling [willing to pay you to work] my burn-bag detail. Want
>> it?
>> A. Yeah. I'll buy it from you for [do it for you if you pay me] ten
>> dollars.
>>
>> I assume that paying someone else to do your work was an Army-wide
>> custom. But was this particular style of language in common use?
>
> I don't know, but I've used this exact "sell [a burdensome duty, for a
> negative 'price']" myself freely in recent years. Generally it has been
> understood, but once it wasn't, and when I thought about it I wasn't
> able
> to remember where I first encountered it or indeed whether I might have
> generated it independently (although I've surely heard it from others
> too).
> Anyway, it seems natural enough ... at least until I look at it too
> closely. I'm pretty sure that I did not encounter it first in a
> military
> context.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
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