swabbie, swabbo
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Sep 12 18:32:29 UTC 2014
I "swabbie"
Not in OED, though HDAS files have loads of cites from WW2 on.
It means a sailor, esp. a deckhand. A swabber of decks.
Here's an interesting adumbration:
1911 Arthur Train, in _Evening Star_ (Wash., D.C.) (Apr. 11) (Sunday Mag.)
16: Why, it's old Swabbie the scrubwoman! Hello, Swabbie, old girl!
Train was a popular novelist of the day, and his story ("Bat") appeared in
several papers.
II "swabbo"
Also not in OED. Occasionally a synonym for the above (as in Tom Wolfe),
but in older naval usage a zero or, as below, a complete miss on a target
range.
1909 _Boston Journal_ (July 30) 6:The scorers were all men of the United
States Marine Corps, and when a shooter fired at a target and got a miss,
and the red flag was waved to denote the fact, the scorer called out in the
language of the service: "A swabbo for -------." Much merriment ensued,
and the [Spanish-American War veterans] now have a new word added to their
vocabulary.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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