I guess it had to happen. Here is a book chock full of all the various slang and sayings used by soldiers on both sides of the lines during WWII.

Those of us who have served in the military will be pretty amazed at how many of these phrases and words have stuck around to become part of the military lingo. There are even quite a few that have leaked out to be part of the common vernacular used by the general population.

Now I do need to mention that this book is strictly solder slang as I guess adding in nautical slang and terms would have been more than the already considerable size of the book could handle. It could also be that the author was in the Army so isn't properly conversant with good nautical slang.

Anyway, this is more of a reference or easy browsing book than one where you sit down and start reading. You'll find many of the words to be pretty funny and some even a bit shocking.

Divided into four section for US, Commonwealth, German, and even some Japanese slang, each section is further divided alphabetically so if you wanted to know what 'screwball' meant, just pop over to the S section and you'll see that it is 'an unstable or odd person'.

It is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed browsing through and it is one that I know you will find just as much fun to read. Most highly recommended.

September 2007

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