"Soldier"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Back in the old days, Marines were frequently referred to as "soldiers of
the sea." For ex.:

1878 Willard Glazier _Heroes of Three Wars_ (Phila.: Hubbard, 1880) 361: Six
hundred ships garrisoned the coast of the United States, and fifty-one
thousand soldiers of the sea garrisoned the ships.

Whether a "soldier of the sea" is logically equivalent to a "soldier" is a
question I'll leave to others.

JL

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Soldier"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Soldiers," so far as I know, except in technical contexts.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 8:33 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: "Soldier"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 2/27/2009 05:55 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >   (I doubt that any American much cared whether they
> > >called foreign marines "soldiers" or not.)
> >
> > What did the American colonials call the English marines?  This may
> > go back to before the Revolution, to the 1740 War of Jenkins' Ear,
> > when Americans joined the British expedition in the Caribbean.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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