Captured Same

[Dan Goncharoff]

Just a guess, but in telegraphic language a word such as "it" would be
dropped (to save words, and thereby money) while "same" would be
included. Using "same"ensured the message made sense.

BTW, wasn't the original quote "Sighted Sub Sank Same"?

DanG

On 5/16/2010 11:11 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Captured Same
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:43 PM -0400 5/16/10, Neal Whitman wrote:
>
>> In a WWII-era Tom and Jerry cartoon (I think it's called "Yankee Doodle
>> Mouse," but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and find the DVD it's on and
>> check), at one point Jerry sends a telegram to his commanders to report that
>> his mission was accomplished. The wording went something like: "Found enemy
>> cat, captured same." I wondered if this was some kind of diction of a bygone
>> era, with "same" used where I'd've said "it". But here's a headline from the
>> website for Aviation Week, dated Sept. 23, 2008:
>>
>> Sighted Self-Propelled Semi-Submersible Drug Runner, Captured Same
>> http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3abc8e37a0-55ce-4815-8977-ce698258efb5&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
>>
>> So is this a military thing instead? Why use "same", when "it" (or "him" or
>> "her") does the same job in an unstressed pronoun with (regarding telegrams)
>> fewer letters?
>>
>>
> One of the (real or apocryphal?) military examples that has become
> proverbial is the telegrammatic "SAW SUB SANK SAME".  Right up there
> with the Caesarean "Veni vidi vici", although Julius saved a few
> denarii with his three word wire.
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org