[Ads-l] mystery word

[Jonathan Lighter]

>From Tom Sterret's column, "What D'ye Know? in the Erie Daily Times (Nov.
13, 1929), p. 8 (GenealogyBank):

"[It] always amuses me in pictures and stories to hear a sailor call a
Marine a leatherneck. True, once in a while a sailor did call a Marine a
leatherneck. But his pet name for a Marine, the one the old salt invariably
used, cannot be set down in print, even in these days of utmost freedom in
literature and art...It was a nasty term. The word 'post' was used in
connection with it. But it was picturesque and expressive, and used to make
the Marines fighting mad when they heard it."

I can't imagine what word Sterret is referring to. He spent twelve years in
the Marines from 1908 or earlier.

Sterret also mentions that "[I]t is only in pictures and stories that a
Marine ever calls a sailor a gob. The Marine almost invariably called a
sailor a 'flatfoot.' [For which see HDAS.] ...We had an unprintable name
for cavalrymen. In fact we had unprintable names for most of the outfits."
["Gob" seems to have gained currency only ca 1910.  -JL]

The word for cavalryman that he  has in mind may be "sore-ass." Beyond
that, Sterret also recalls certain ladies called "Tugboat Annie" and "Dirty
Gertie," names that later had notable subliterary applications.

JL



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

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