G.I. Jive: A Dictionary of Words at War: The Vernacular of Victory (1939-1946)

About the Book

The language of American World War II military service began to evolve with the first draftees of 1940. Their emerging vocabulary was irreverent, creative, and often obscene, influenced by the worlds of music, jazz, swing, jive, and the nation’s fascination with occupational slang. The massive Army maneuvers in Tennessee during the spring of 1941 gave rise to a host of profane acronyms, including SNAFU, FUBAR, SOL, and others. A vibrant new American war slang took shape, bolstered by the brash slang already in use by the British Royal Air Force. G.I. Jive: A Dictionary of Words at War: The Vernacular of Victory (1939–1946) explores that language, offering a fresh and multifaceted perspective on the war and the people who fought it. Definitions are richly detailed, incorporating word histories, quotations, and examples of early usage in print. Primary sources include news accounts, memoirs, diaries, letters, oral histories, and various slang and jargon compilations published during the war.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Reader’s Note.
The Dictionary A-Z
Bibliography
Periodicals And News Services
Bibliography
About the Author

About the Author :
Paul Dickson is the author of more than 60 nonfiction books. His previous works of discursive lexicography include The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, which the Wall Street Journal termed one of the “top five” top baseball books of all time, A Dictionary of the Space Age, which was written under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Authorisms, words coined by writers; Words from the White House, and Family Words. The inspiration for G.I. Jive came from his recent World War II narrative The Rise of the G.I. Army 1940–1941, which the New York Times called “A profoundly heartening experience.” Dickson’s writing has concentrated on 20th-century American history, baseball, biography, and popular culture. He lives in Kensington, Maryland.

Review :
A comprehensive, entertaining compendium of military lingo. Paul Dickson has wonderfully and thoroughly captured a hidden side of World War II—the language of GIs. Slang was prevalent in all aspects of America’s armed forces and is often not considered when looking back at the war. Paul Dickson is the reigning crown prince of slang lexicography and G.I. Jive shows us why. Dickson loves words and his books show it. When he lashes on to a subject, he won’t let go. When he latches on to a word, he won’t let go. He shatters our expectations and conventional wisdom about the words that he writes about. He makes us smile as he makes us smarter. The great Paul Dickson delivers the definitive guide to the language of World War II as only one of America’s most masterful researchers and writers could. Comprehensive and meticulous yet always engaging and witty. The author of the definitive guide to the language of baseball turns his insatiable curiosity and research prowess to America’s other national pastime: war. G.I. Jive brims with detail, rigor, and surprises. Dickson has written another indispensable lexicon of the American experience. Slang is the product of men crowding together in worlds of noise and activity.’ No wonder war is one of slang’s great producers and now the subject of Paul Dickson’s latest book, GI Jive. If it were only for the magisterial summary of military slang coinage and collection that serves as his introduction it would certainly merit your attention. But the hundreds of individual entries a wealth of lexical, historical and technical detail, make this an excellent guide to words at war.