"boots on the ground"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I think the important question is how "boots on the ground" relates to the
"tooth-to-tail" ratio...

DanG

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "boots on the ground"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Advisors (i.e., intended to train and advise) were "advisors."  Combat
> troops (i.e., intended to fight) were "combat troops."
>
> Claims of "doublespeak" arose when,  in 1964-65, U.S. advisors began to
> take ever more active combat roles with the sometimes less than fully
> enthused South Vietnamese.
>
> A synonym for "BOTG" is "ground troops" or "ground forces," but those lack
> that figure-of-speech pizazz. Also, usage has capriciously decreed that
> BOTG apply mainly to combat personnel, whereas "ground troops" is (for
> equally inexplicable reasons) more ambiguous.
>
> Maybe boots gotta march or "walk all over you," but ground forces just wait
> to be told what to do.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> 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: "boots on the ground"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Sep 26, 2014, at 11:08 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > > At 9/26/2014 09:55 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >=20
> > >> If I hear this phrase again I'm going to scream. In fact, I might as =
> > well
> > >> do it now and get it over with.
> > >>=20
> > >> Ah, back to normal. Jake Tapper and his guests managed to say "boots =
> > on the
> > >> ground" *eight* times in less than two minutes, which averages out to
> =
> > one
> > >> boot roughly every seven seconds.
> > >=20
> > > Proves that the U.S. is heading for a massive re-engagement.
> >
> > Maybe we should just airlift a massive bunch of boots and drop them on =
> > ISIS forces.  Speaking of which, does anyone have a take on why the U.S.
> =
> > government (and maybe U.K., I can't remember) insists on referring to =
> > our enemy as ISIL when everyone else calls them ISIS?  Whenever someone =
> > explains that ISIL is for "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", I =
> > keep thinking of Oscar Levant and his spoken punctuation marks. =20
> >
> > LH
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > >> =
> >
> http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2014/09/24/roundtable-more-u-s-ground-troops-=
> > likely/
> > >>=20
> > >> (Read the text for the three additional "boots on the ground.")
> > >>=20
> > >> Plus. OED actually wants to link the "boot" in "boots on the ground" =
> > with
> > >> def. 1d, namely "A recruit at a boot camp."  So what these people  =
> > are
> > >> "really" talking about, I mean etymologically, is "untrained recruits
> =
> > on
> > >> the ground."   Make sense? It does to somebody.
> > >>=20
> > >> The service paper "Stars and Stripes" adds that "boots on the ground"
> =
> > is
> > >> "slang."   How would that be?
> > >=20
> > > Because it confused "slang" with "metaphor"?
> > >=20
> > > Joel
> > >=20
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>
>
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