Military jargon

[Jonathan Lighter]

Q: Am I losing it or did I once know a guy (in the late '70s) who used "borrow" in a similarly "reversed" way to mean "lend" or "loan".

"Could you borrow me that pen for a minute?"

A: I am losing it, but I did know him, and I'm pretty sure he used to say this.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Military jargon
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On Aug 18, 2004, at 6:32 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> 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" 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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