more on early "jeeps"

Wed Dec 7 23:55:54 UTC 2011

It seems that all of these valuable details went to Victot instead of
to everyone:

Yet more early "jeeps," mostly from Google News:

1941 Chapin Hall in _L.A. Times_ (Feb. 11) 1A [ProQuest]: A "jeep" or
a "yardbird" are [sic] recently arrived recruits who are assigned to
sections colloquially known as "Skunk Hollow" and "Jeepville."

1941 Jim Marshall in _Collier's Wkly._ (Apr. 5) 12:  Giant Jeep
...Come along for a ride on the first Dieselectric locomotive - and
prepare to bid farewell to the steaming, smoke-billowing Iron
Horse..."[I]t is The Jeep and it has the strength of 5,400 wild
mustangs.

1941 _Collier's Wkly._ (Apr. 15) 32: What various National Guardsmen
and sundry Regulars at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground loudly
proclaim is that they have first call on the name Jeep for military
use; that a Jeep is...strictly a high-speed prime-mover with
considerable specifications, not the least of which is a 7,500-pound
pull on its drawbar. ...It'll yank six-inch howitzers along a level
highway or up a forty percent grade at 40 m.p.h. On its ten wheels
it'll wallow through mud or water forty inches deep. ...Et cetera.
..."So," demand the Aberdeen boys, "what is teh idea of calling a puny
scout car or a quarantined soldier a Jeep?"

1941 _Pittsburgh Press_ (Apr. 18) 35 : He spends at least 10 hours in
"the jeep," the cadet's name of [sic] the Link trainer, a flightless
"airplane" replete with delicate instruments.

1941 H.I. Philips in _The Miami Daily News_ (June 30) 10: Witch is why
I ain't seen no jeep [trainee] with a flag to denote that he is a tank
lately.

1941  _Sunday Morning Star_ [Wilmington, Del.] (July 6) 9: In the
army, selectees are often referred to as jeeps.

1941 Anita Brenner in _N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine_ (Oct. 16) 10
[ProQuest]: There are scores of words to describe adolescent bores; he
(or she) is a droop, drip, jerk, drizzle, jeep, goon, and..."slob."

>From beyond the USA:

1941 _Calgary Herald_ (July 11) 4 [GN]: Here's some more of the
picturesque slanguage of the Royal Air Force boys: ...Jeep - Radio
operator.

1941 Quentin Pope in _Chicago Tribune_ (July 16) 13 [ProQuest]:
AUSTRALIAN NAVY HAS A LANGUAGE OF ITS VERY OWN. ... A Jeep is a
Dumbbell. The newcomer aboard ship is a "makker,"...and if he proves a
dumbbell, he is a "jeep."

An early "beep": (i.e., 1/4-ton-payload jeep):

1941 _Sunday Morning Star_ (July 6) 9 [GN]: Bantam or beep - small
four-wheeled vehicles, used for reconnaissance, command and combat
purposes.

Early "peeps" (1/4-ton-payload jeeps):

1941 _Chicago Tribune_ (July 8) 10 [ProQuest]: [T]he word jeep means a
command car; peep (son of a jeep) means a bantam car. ...jumping jeep
is an autogyro with a jumping takeoff.

1941 Philip B. Coan in _N.Y. Times_ (Oct. 26) XX3 [sic] [ProQuest]:
The one-half ton [N.B. -JL] "jeep" command reconnaissance car, its
name taken from the model designation "GP," and one-quarter ton "peep"
reconnaissance cars are combat vehicles.

1941 Lewis B. Funcke in _N.Y. Times_ (Nov. 6) 29 [ProQuest]: Jeeps,
incidentally, are quarter-ton command and reconnaissance cars. But
jeep is only one affectionate nickname. In the Army these cars also
have such titles as peeps, blitzbuggies, bugs, beeps, chiggers and
bantams. The reason that they are held in such esteem is that "the
only thing they can't do is fly." However, as was proudly stated by
one of the men: "it's only the sky that's the limit."

Finally:

1941 AP in _N.Y.  Times_ (Nov. 15) 12 [ProQuest]:

" 'Jeep' Is Banned as Term with Too Many Meanings.

"MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Nov. 14). What is a jeep?

"The term has so many uses in various army organizations that Captain
E. B.  Nichols has warned soldiers at Second Army headquarters to drop
the word from their vocabularies.

"'One soldier says his commanding officer needs a jeep to take a ride
out into the woods," he explained. "Another says a jeep just took off
and flew away. Maybe another says a jeep has just warned that bombers
are coming over. Some say that jeeps carry guns. Others say they
don't.'

"Among articles soldiers call 'jeeps' are trucks, command cars, bantam
scout cars, armored scout cars, mechanical air raid sentries,
mechanical anti-aircraft gun aimers, and the small observation planes
used by field artillery units."

In other words, "jeep" could be applied to almost any innovative
mechanical vehicle or device - in addition to certain kinds of people.

At this point, proponents of the ever-popular "jeep < G.P. < general
purpose" theory should be trading in their thinking caps.

JL

"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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