Semantic drift: "khaki"

[Jonathan Lighter]

For anyone not yet bored silly by this topic:

  As early as 1919, popular novelist Rex Beach refers to the World War I army uniform indiscriminately as "khaki" and "olive drab" on the same page:

  1919 Rex Beach _Too Fat to Fight_ (N.Y.: Harper's) 27 [ref. to 1918]: Every time I see a doughboy I want to stand at attention and throw out my chest....There's something sacred about that olive drab. It's like your mother's wedding-dress, only holier, and decenter, if possible....Those swinging arms, those rifles aslant, those leggings flashing, and that sea, of khaki rising, falling - Gee! There's something about it.

  JL

Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Amy West
Subject: Re: Semantic drift: "khaki"
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My brother, who trained me to spit-shine, used to starch his fatigues
as a youngster. They were olive drab or camouflage. I think the only
khaki-coloring I saw in his uniforms were in his desert camies. We
never called his uniforms anything but "fatigues", less frequently
BDUs (basic duty uniform?). Again, this is late 1970s.

I have heard khakis refer to the style of pants also known as chinos:
for example, at one point at the museum job we were told to wear
khakis and a golf shirt as a uniform.

---Amy (Again, not a lot of help) West

>Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:14:22 -0700
>From: Dave Wilton
>Subject: Re: Semantic drift: "khaki"
>
>IIRC, the US Army abandoned its tropical/summer khaki uniforms in the early
>1980s, leaving only the olive-drab uniform. I would suspect that if the
>meaning shifted it would be after this date, at least in American usage.
>
>During the 60s and 70s there was a true US Army khaki uniform, which would
>have been worn in tropical Vietnam. Perhaps Heinemann is referring to the
>true khaki uniform and this is being misinterpreted.

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