This is an essay about usages of the English language as employed by soldiers of Great Britain and secondly by soldiers of the United States. Kindly stay with me, rather than turning me aside on the ground that the language used in this essay is scatological and perhaps slightly lewd. Actually, it is nothing of the sort.
I am continually amazed by my memories of service in World War II where I spent a good bit of time flying in support of the British Eighth Army. This took place in Italy. My consternation comes from the fact that after 65 years, words and phrases from that period appear in my vocabulary frequently. Let me give you an example.
In Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, an adjacent town, there is a store that sells European products, particularly from France. All of the items except the bread are frozen. Miss Chicka and I have become devotees of the store called the “White Toque.” The other day after we had patronized the store, the engine of the car was not even started until both of us tore into a crusty baguette. Reverting to my speech patterns of 65 years ago or so, and reflecting the fact that I had served so much time with the Brits, I said that when it comes to baguettes, “The French have that recipe knocked up.”
I am fully aware that in American parlance, being “knocked up” is often the result of sexual relations gone awry. In American English, getting “knocked up” does not often make an appearance in polite conversations.
Ahh, but in the Royal Air Force and the British Eighth Army, being “knocked up” is a superlative condition. There is nothing scatological about it when used in the English version of the language. If an RAF pilot sends machine gun bullets into an enemy truck and it explodes, the pilot will say, “I had that one knocked up all the way.” An English soldier might say to his wife — if he is ever home — that the mutton meal I just enjoyed was completely “knocked up.” (Author’s note: I doubt that any English mutton dinner is worth eating. The soldier was complimenting his wife for other reasons, perhaps with romance in mind.) When Winston Churchill spoke, the members of the RAF or the British Eighth Army, might say, “Old Winnie had that speech knocked up from the start.” So you see, we assign different values to the same English phrase. Being an American, I have to ration my use of the colorful phrase of “knocked up.” But remember in the usage that I became accustomed to many years ago, being “knocked up” is greatly to be admired.
Now we come to the second usage in the English language which is completely American. During my time in World War II, I was pleased to hear expressions that came from obscure locations. A soldier from Tennessee might say that he was “Tight as a June bug” when he had a bit too much to drink. A soldier from the New York area might say, “What goes around, comes around.” There were dozens of such expressions involving the American usage of the English language.
For reasons unknown to me, the word “piss” often appeared in soldier’s expressions. You may recall a story I told in a previous essay involving a Russian immigrant who had gained American citizenship and was serving in U. S. forces. Soldiers never tell each other that they are good-looking, but rather, how ugly they are. When this former Russian native was told how ugly he was, he said, “If you don’t like my face, piss on it.”
As time has gone on, the expressions “pissed off” or being “pissed” appear regularly in speech patterns. Even on cable news, Chris Matthews of MSNBC often refers to “being pissed off” or “being pissed.” So pissed is not as scatological as it used to be.
The case I have in mind now involves the Commander in Chief, the great decider who received the Iraq Study Group report. He thanked the authors, co-chairmen Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton. While he thanked them, he obviously had no intention of putting their recommendations to use. He met with them at 7 A.M. one morning, got their report, ushered them out of his offices and went on with his business. But in the final analysis, as any American GI would tell you, it was Bush’s intent to tell the Iraq Study Group to “go piss up a rope.”
For the past 65 years I have been aware of the expression, “go piss up a rope.” I have spent very little time trying to understand it but if I had devoted much time to it, I am certain that its meaning would still elude me. The fact is that being told to “go piss up a rope” simply means that I intend to ignore you or I intend to disregard anything you have said to me. And that is precisely what the great decider elected to do with the Iraq Study Group Report.
Well, there you have two usages of the English language as propounded by the men of the Royal Air Force and of the British Eighth Army on one hand, and of the American GIs on the other. Neither expression advances the cause of the state of the language very much, but they must have made a significant impression upon me because I have remembered them for so long. I pass these two expressions along in the hope that some of you may shed some light on their meaning. I have no great hope that their meaning will become any clearer within my lifetime, but at least the expressions are there for linguistic scholars like Harry Livermore to wrestle with. But there is one unarguable fact. That is, when it comes to crusty French baguettes, the French have that recipe completely knocked up. Even Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth or Camilla Parker Bowles would have no argument with that soldierly conclusion.
E. E. Carr
January 2, 2007
Essay 227
Authors note: The Harry Livermore referred to in this essay is an honor’s graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa. During his ten years at Grinnell, Mr. Livermore acquired 13.5 degrees. Some of those degrees are Centigrade and others are Fahrenheit. But scholar Livermore has made no effort to explain the forgoing expressions. I hope that he does so during my lifetime.
~~~
Kevin’s commentary: What if someone was an expert at getting someone pregnant? Would he have getting knocked up knocked up? What if you were the best at peeing up ropes?