[Ads-l] troops

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Sep 18 22:58:57 UTC 2016


On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 5:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "Very condescending" is about right, but it can/could also be mildly
> humorous:
>

As with all such words, if the circumstances are right, their use is a sign
of familiarity and solidarity, if not of close friendship.

War story.

We were sitting around discussing the FNG's who were going to be assigned
to our "trick," as work-groups were called. At one point, the NCOIC AKA
"trick chief" interrupted to ask who "Martin" was.

Oh, you know who that is, sarge. He's x.

To which the sergeant replied, "Oh, no! Not that dipshit!"

>From that moment on, Martin was addressed as and referred to by the troops
only as "Dipshit," an hommage to the fact that a person of authority found
his mere existence annoying. We knew Martin from back at the Army Language
School, whereas Sgt. Weir, at that time, had only seen him around since his
arrival in West Berlin. Yet, he already didn't like him. That kind of power
to annoy had to be acknowledged!


-- 
-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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