[Ads-l] "Foxtrot" redux

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is another 1977 citation mentioning "Whiskey, Tango, Fox Trot”. I
guess the “W.T.F." was dropped from the book title.

Date: July 4, 1977
Newspaper: The Cincinnati Post
Newspaper Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Article: Here abouts
Author: Jani Gardner
Quote Page 6, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Birth of a book . . . Stewart Weiner touched down here last week from
Provincetown, Mass. long enough to tell us that his labor pains on his
novel "Whiskey, Tango, Fox Trot" have so far produced one third of a
real live book. He’s now in New York figuring out how to become a
magazine editor, since that role now comes in his size. We hear sighs
and laughter come from those lucky folks who are reading his funny
manuscript so far.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 3:41 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here is a 1977 citation mentioning both "Whiskey, Tango, Fox Trot” and
>  “W.T.F."   Both terms were supposed to appear in the title of a
> forthcoming book, but I could not find the book via a quick search.
>
> Date: March 3, 1977
> Newspaper: The Cincinnati Post
> Newspaper Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
> Article: Whatever happened to...?
> Quote Page 21, Column 2 and 3
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Here we've compiled a list of familiar faces who once made news for
> one reason or another in the Cincinnati area.
> . . .
> STEWART (SKIP) WEINER—Former editor of Cincinnati's "Writer’s Digest,"
> free-lance writer now rubbing elbows with arty people such as Norman
> Mailer in Provincetown Mass., and writing book called "Whiskey, Tango,
> Fox Trot (W.T.F.)."
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 2:41 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Relatedly, here's a Vietnam memoir describing an incident from 1968:
> >
> > ---
> > https://books.google.com/books?id=8qgaDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA395
> > _White Water Red Hot Lead: On Board U.S. Navy Swift Boats in Vietnam_
> > (2017) by Dan Daly, p. 395
> > My attempt at humor was based on the fact that I remembered that sometime
> > in his naval career Eldon [Thompson] had served on an aircraft carrier. In
> > response, I received Eldon's now famous "Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot, Oscar,"
> > response which loosely translated meant, "What the fuck, over?"
> > ---
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 2:30 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > When I posted about "WTF" on Language Log back in 2009 (when the 3rd
> > > edition of Jesse's "The F-Word" was published), some commenters brought up
> > > "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot."
> > >
> > > https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1766
> > >
> > > One regular LL commenter, Jim Gordon, shared this memory from serving in
> > > Vietnam:
> > >
> > > ---
> > > September 24, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
> > > JimG said,
> > > VietNam-era conversations (in-theater) sometimes included mock radio
> > > procedure using standard phonetics, coming out as "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?,
> > > Over" = WTF,O and thus "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Oscar?" I and some of my
> > > old-fart contemporaries sometimes use it still, as an opening greeting as
> > > well as an expression of disbelief or lack of understanding. We also
> > > inserted the adjective form into out*standing, out*rageous and abso*lutely.
> > > ---
> > >
> > > --bgz
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 11:28 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Exactly one month ago, Fred Shapiro posted about "foxtrot" as the name of
> > >> a dance, leading to a discussion of the interpretation of the early
> > >> examples.
> > >>
> > >> This got me wondering about a different Foxtrot, the capitalized version,
> > >> as a radiocommunications spelling-alphabet term for the letter "F",
> > >> representing the word "fuck" in phrases or compound words. There are a
> > >> number of widespread examples of this, including "Charlie Foxtrot" for
> > >> "clusterfuck" (Florida governor Ron DeSantis got some notice for using this
> > >> in January of this year) and "Foxtrot Oscar" for "fuck off".
> > >>
> > >> The earliest I've been able to find is 1967, for "Romeo Foxtrot" for
> > >> "ratfuck", in (of course) a military source.
> > >>
> > >> But I'm curious about these examples of "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", from The
> > >> Bomb of 1974, the yearbook of the Virginia Military Institute:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> https://archive.org/details/bomb1974virg/page/32/mode/2up?q=%22whiskey+tango+foxtrot%22
> > >>
> > >> (alt text of the first example: "A senior at last, Dave devotes full
> > >> energy towards sleeping, drinking, and wenching. Dave bids farewell to
> > >> VMI--WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, OUT!!")
> > >>
> > >> There are many later examples of "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" meaning "What
> > >> The Fuck", but I'm not sure what these 1974 ones mean. The earliest I know
> > >> of for "WTF" as "what/who/etc. the fuck" is 1985 (though it's almost
> > >> certainly earlier, but this is very hard to search). These VMI examples
> > >> don't clearly mean "what the fuck", but no other interpretation jumps to
> > >> mind either. Any thoughts?
> > >>
> > >> Jesse Sheidlower
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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