more on early "jeeps"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Dec 8 00:53:51 UTC 2011


On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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."

Since I've been able to understand English, I've known _yardbird_ as a
BE word for "chicken" - cf. Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, renowned as a
connoisseur of fried chicken - and, since I've been able to read, I've
known it as G.I. jargon, like _goldbrick_, used During The War, but
extinct by the time of my own career in the military.

According to Google, there's at least one restaurant "way up in
Harlem" that currently uses "yardbird" on its menu instead of "(fried)
chicken."

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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