[Ads-l] "a regular Bulgarian army" (1917)

[Ben Yagoda]

The thing that strikes me about the sentence is the word “regular,” which I wrote about here: https://web.archive.org/web/20181113231301/https:/www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/11/13/in-which-i-make-like-a-regular-william-safire/

The OED defines this sense of “regular” as "As an intensifier: complete, absolute, utter, veritable.” In my view this is a bit inadequate. Complete, absolute, etc. are okay but “regular” serves not so much as an intensifier as a simile-maker. And, at least in modern times, it’s usually ironic or humorous. So you could call someone “a regular Einstein” if they solved a couple of simple arithmetic problems, but hadn’t shown much genius beyond that. (All the better if they put on airs.)

“A regular [proper name]” was in circulation well before 1917. The novel Transmigration (1874) by Mortimer Collins (1874) has the line of dialogue, “You’re a regular Romeo.” And an article in an 1858 edition of Young Men’s Magazine has “… each one voting himself a regular Napoleon.”

Ben

> 
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> 
> Date:    Fri, 19 Aug 2022 15:58:18 -0700
> From:    Nancy Friedman <wordworking at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: "a regular Bulgarian army" (1917)
> 
> The volunteer archivist at the bay swimming and boating club I belong to
> has a question about a phrase she came across in a July 1917 club document:
> 
> “Our athletes will be lost in the shuffle among a regular Bulgarian army of
> contestants, and their chances of showing or even getting mentioned in the
> papers are practically nix.”
> 
> Any ideas about what the phrase signified?
> 
> Nancy Friedman
> @fritinancy
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date:    Fri, 19 Aug 2022 23:35:39 -0400
> From:    ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: "a regular Bulgarian army" (1917)
> 
> Nancy Friedman wrote:
>> The volunteer archivist at the bay swimming and boating club I belong to
>> has a question about a phrase she came across in a July 1917 club document:
>> 
>> “Our athletes will be lost in the shuffle among a regular Bulgarian army of
>> contestants, and their chances of showing or even getting mentioned in the
>> papers are practically nix.”
>> 
>> Any ideas about what the phrase signified?
> 
> A search for “Bulgarian” and “Bulgaria” at Green's Dictionary of Slang
> produced no matches.
> 
> Wikipedia has an entry for “First Balkan War” which occurred several
> years before the 1917 date.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Balkan_War
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> The First Balkan War . . . lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and
> involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria,
> Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan
> states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior
> (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically
> disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Wikipedia also has an entry for “Second Balkan War” which also
> occurred a few years before the 1917 date.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Balkan_War
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria,
> dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War,
> attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.) / 29
> (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian
> offensive and counter-attacked, entering Bulgaria.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Newspapers in this time period contained many articles about the
> Bulgarian army attacking and retreating. Perhaps the figure of speech,
> “regular Bulgarian army of Contestants”, was inspired by news reports
> of the Balkan Wars.
> 
> Garson
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Aug 2022 to 19 Aug 2022 (#2022-204)
> ************************************************************


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