odd usages in _Mister Roberts_

[Bill Palmer]

An odd usage indeed.

The other inauthentic reference to clock times, often heard in war movies in
a naval setting: appending "hours" after the time.  This is the custom in
Army & Air Force, but not in the Navy, and, AFAIK, not in the Marine Corps.

Bill P
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 9:53 AM
Subject: odd usages in _Mister Roberts_


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      odd usages in _Mister Roberts_
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I noticed two very odd usages in the 1955 film _Mister Roberts_,
> screenplay
> by Frank S. Nugent and Joshua Logan.
>
> The writers have a Navy officer in 1945 casually referring to 5:50 p.m. as
> "eighteen hundred minus ten" instead of "seventeen fifty."
>
> And head nurse Lieut. Girard addresses her female staff as "Men!" Of
> course,
> this may just be a joke.
>
> Both the movie and the play which preceded it are based on the novel by
> Thomas Heggen (1918-1949).  Unlike Nugent and Logan, Heggen was a navy
> veteran of WWII.
>
> When the film came out, the NYT described the play as a "cherished work."
>
> JL
>
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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