[Ads-l] armistice

[Jonathan Lighter]

When I was a lad, we had "Armistice Day" to commemorate the end of World
War I.

So I and every kid I knew thought "armistice" meant 'the end of a war.'

Some people still think so:

1990 John Robert Paris _The Great Combat Pictures_ (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press) 287: MURPHY'S WAR...Murphy is a...mechanic aboard and
armed British merchantman vessel [sic] sunk...in the closing months of
World War II. ...Even after the armistice is declared he continues his
driven efforts to destroy the U-boat.

(I've seen the movie, and it is indeed about WW2.)

PS: In the United States, WW1 was almost *never* called the "Great War,"
though that seems to be the preferred designation nowadays (perhaps thanks
to Paul Fussell - who incidentally didn't write about Americans in the war).

It was called the "World War."  That's why there have been two of them
instead of just the one from 1939-45.

JL

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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