BJ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

I doubt he'd have said "blow job" (or have been quoted as saying it) if he
or the NYT had reason to believe the other sense (if they knew it
themselves)  was very familiar. HDAS has another 1945 from Fred Hamann's
glossary _Air Words_, where it is defined as either a jet or a "rocket
plane."  Since the Luftwaffe used both in 1944-45, the aviation sense may
have arisen among U.S. bomber crews stationed in England. (The British flew
a very few jets beginning in 1944; the Japanese none.)

And yes, it is possible to have achieved a high level of industrialization,
as the America had even before 1941, without the existence of the term
"blow job."

For all you trivialists, the U.S.  military plane with the highest number
following the "P" designation was the XP-89, which became the F-89 when it
went into production.

It had been preceded by the no-longer "Xperimental" P-82 and P-84. The
XP-86 soon became the F-86. There were other "XP" numbers in between.

All "P" designations (for "Pursuit") switched to "F" (for "Fighter") when
the Air Force became a separate branch in September, 1947.

JL

On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 5:21 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: BJ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
> <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> > I didn't think the plane would have been named "Blow Job" unless, you
> > know, there actually _were_ blow jobs.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -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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