[Ads-l] OED March 2016 New Words notes (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Army green" 1897 is puzzling, since the U.S. Army at that time wore blue,
as it had for over 100 years.

Perh. the color term was coined simply to complement "navy blue," w/o
reference to contemporaneous uniforms.


JL

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
> william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:
>
> > Army Navy -- (1945, adj meaning military surplus)
>
>
> In StL, we used "war-surplus store," which, together with "Army-Navy war
> surplus store" in a separate cite, goes back only to 1946 in print,
> according to GB. At the war-surplus stores - right after V-E Day, such
> stores sprang up like mushrooms - in what had not yet become the 'hood were
> sold brand-new, unboxed gas masks, pilot's leather caps, and goggles, for a
> quarter apiece. They probably sold other stuff, too, but those three items
> were the must-haves.
>
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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