[Ads-l] New folk ety: "jarhead"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Here's a good antedating from 1942:

1942 Bremerton Daily News Searchlight (July 23) II 1: When the doughboy,
gob, or jarhead walks down the street he misses the quick friendly smiles
of the folks back home.

Also enlightening:

1951 News and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) (May 27) 1: An ol-timer in the
Corps ia "jarhead." Incidentally, only Marines call other Marines thus.
It's a private epithet and not for the likes of us.

And here's a rare, forgotten sense:

1918 Trench and Camp (Camp Hancock, Ga.) (Oct. 16) 4: The Infantryman is a
"Doughboy." The Artilleryman is a "Jarhead" - although it makes him mad if
you call him one....A Marine is a "Devil Dog" or a "Leatherneck."

I assume that the artillery sense was originally (and possibly exclusively)
applied to members of mountain- or pack- artillery units, which utilized
mules to carry small howitzers. AFAIK,
field artillery relied solely on horses.

JL

On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 4:19 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> OED has the gyrene sense from 1944, HDAS from 1943.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 1:49 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Etymonline has this to add:
>>
>> also jar-head, "U.S. Marine," by 1985 (but in a biographical book with a
>> World War II setting), from jar + head (n.). Also used as a general term
>> of
>> insult (by 1979) and by 1922 as a Georgia dialectal word for "mule."
>>
>> MAM
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2023, 9:38 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Quora.com:
>> >
>> > "The Marines were formed as dedicated fighters who's sole purpose was to
>> > board the enemy ship and step on necks. The only original requirement
>> was
>> > to be over 6ft tall. As ships we're built to conserve space, this lead
>> to
>> > many a Marine whacking their noggin' on the lamps illuminating the ships
>> > interior. Hence they earned the moniker “Jarhead" after the jar lamps."
>> >
>> > An accompanying photos show illustrate "jar lamps."
>> >
>> > "Jarhead," of course, wasn't applied to U.S. Marines before WW2.
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > --
>> > "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
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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."
>


-- 
"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