[antedating] "trench coat" [Was Re: Slang from WWI (UNCLASSIFIED)]

[Jonathan Lighter]

This ad http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/TRENCH%20COAT%20tailors.pdf from October, 1915, observes that, at that time, the trench coat was "not an officially recognized garment" in the British Army, and had to be purchased specially by the wearer.

  JL



Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Slang from WWI (UNCLASSIFIED)
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Trench coats were _devised ... to keep *officers* warm and dry_.

Only present and former enlisted personnel, that is to say, enlisted
*human resources*, can truly appreciate this one. I was unable to
finish Catch-22 when I first tried to read it, because the concept of
officers having non-trivial problems was so foreign to me, as a former
EM. And I ain't seen no parts of no combat.

-Wilson



On Nov 29, 2007 1:58 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
> Subject: Slang from WWI (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7106376.stm
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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