[Ads-l] ten-shun; ten-hut

[Jonathan Lighter]

Movies say otherwise. ; )

JL

On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 10:50 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > He's going up the barracks steps, that guy whose shoulders bear the
> bright
> > gold bars. He's entering the door. Inside some one yells, "Atten-HUT!"
>
> Either the writer doesn't really know or the protocol has changed since
> 1943. Second
> lieutenants randomly entering the barracks, for no particular reason, is a
> common occurrence.
> The first person aware of the entrance of an officer shouts "At ease!",
> which means, "cease talk
> or action of any kind." The officer replies with the countermand, "Carry
> on!", meaning, "go back
> to whatever you were doing."
>
> The pronunciation, "tench-HUT" is also used.
>
> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 11:53 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 10:20 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > 1943 _News-Chronicle_ (Shippensburg, Pa.) (Dec. 3) 5: Camp Crowder,
> > > Mo....The GI pronunciation is something like "Ten-HUT!" Almost every
> > > command for execution of drill orders is made with the letter "h,"
> > > regardless of what it may have been originally. "March" becomes "harch"
> > and
> > > "face" becomes "hace"and so on.  Believe it or not, there really is a
> > > logical reason for it. The reason is that the "h" sound can be started
> > out
> > > with a powerful stab of the diaphram [sic]...which gives body and
> > carrying
> > > quality to the command. Any word used as a command of execution in
> drill
> > > and which is not needed for understanding the order becomes simply
> "Hut"
> > or
> > > Hoo!" "Hut!" is a very powerful word.
> > >
> >
> > Slightly earlier for "atten-hut":
> >
> > ---
> >
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/1943/02/14/archives/shavetail-tells-all-he-describes-with-an-eye-on-the-sergeant-his.html
> > New York Times, Feb. 14, 1943, Sunday Magazine, p. 10, col. 1
> > Second Lieutenant George Bristol, Camp Rucker, Ala.
> > He's going up the barracks steps, that guy whose shoulders bear the
> bright
> > gold bars. He's entering the door. Inside some one yells, "Atten-HUT!"
> > ---
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> - 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
>


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

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