History channel retrofits "grunt"

[Jonathan Lighter]

This week the History Channel is running a series called "WWII in HD."  In
one segment, combat correspondent Richard Tregaskis, author of the 1943
bestseller _Guadalcanal Diary_, is quoted (essentially) as having written,
"One grunt comes up to me and says...."

Note to lexicographers: Tregaskis does not use the word "grunt" in this
sense in _Guadalcanal Diary_- though he does in a much later book about the
Vietnam War.

TV writers have been retrofitting "grunt" into WWII for many years, but
nobody used it then (except maybe some weirdo somewhere).

These TV writers seem unfamiliar with "leatherneck" or "dogface."

JL

--
"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

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