[Ads-l] REMF antedating

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Excellent citations, Bill. I am posting the citation below to clarify
the source of Bill's first citation from the "Tampa Bay Times". The
article originated with "The New York Times" correspondent James P.
Sterba. It was published in "The New York Times Magazine" and was
reprinted in other newspapers. The article appeared in the "Tampa Bay
Times" and "The New York Times" on the same day.

Date: February 8, 1970
Newspaper: The New York Times
Newspaper Location: New York
Section: The New York Times Magazine
Article: Close-up of the Grunt: The Hours of Boredom, The Seconds of Terror
Author: James P. Sterba (New York Times Correspondent in South Vietnam)
Start Page 30, Quote Page 92, Column 3
Database: ProQuest

[Begin excerpt]
The 50,000 men who spent their year at Longbinh were known to the
grunts as “R.E.M.F.’s” (rear-echelon mother ----). R.E.M.F.’s, the
grunts said, were the ones who would go home being for the war and
telling war stories, 99 per cent of which would be baloney.
[End excerpt]

Green’s Dictionary of Slang has an entry: r.e.m.f. n. [abbr.] with
citations beginning in 1973.
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ow3hbey
Garson

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 5:44 PM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> The OED (and Jesse Sheidlower's book _The F-Word_) have an entry for REMF with a first citation of 1/11/1971, in _Newsweek_.
>
>
> 1970  St. Petersburg, FL _Tampa Bay Times_ 8 Feb 12/1
> "The 50,000 men who spent their year at Long Binh were known to the grunts as 'R.E.M.F.s' (rear-echelon mother--)."
>
> 1970 _Boston Globe_ 26 Apr 63/2
> "The grunts call them Rimfs, which stands for 'rear echelon mother -- .' "
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org