# Get the name right!



## Recce41 (27 Jan 2003)

To all you damn, movie watching a55holes. It is call BASIC TRAINING in ever damn Commonwealth Country. NOT the M^%&&#F%^&*@# word Boot Camp. Most people knew it ***  Basic Training back in the 1900-70s then TV gave us that damn word Boot Camp.
 So pass it on to all, the rest of Canada (BASIC TRAINING)


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## Art Johnson (27 Jan 2003)

While you are at it try Guard of Honour. I recently had a discussion that extended all the way up to the DC of a unit, they thought it was Honor Guard. VAC the same thing they wouldn‘t believe me and change their web site till they checked with DDH. At least one regiment still refers to it as honor guard on their web site. Don‘t get me started on the Media, those people don‘t know their eekie from their ockie when it comes to military terminology.


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## Michael Dorosh (27 Jan 2003)

And the flag flies at half staff, not half mast.


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## Jungle (27 Jan 2003)

... and basic training instructors are not "drill instructors".


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## Recce41 (27 Jan 2003)

How many other stupid things?


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## Recce41 (27 Jan 2003)

Mike
 One thing, there is a Half Mast. Its a Navy Term, for Half Staff.


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## muskrat89 (27 Jan 2003)

Kit bag, not "duffle" bag?
And, of course, rifles are not "guns"


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## Michael Dorosh (28 Jan 2003)

Recce - we ARE at the Canadian *ARMY* War Diary....    The thumbtacks, Jack Tars and other seagoing types can call it whatever the ****  they want!

Of course, civvies get even more of the basic stuff wrong, like calling an M113, Bison, Grizzly or Cougar a "tank"...but we can forgive them for that.

I hear soldiers talk about "hat brasses", when of course they mean "cap badges".


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## Ralph (28 Jan 2003)

About turn, not about face...my warrant didn‘t like when I said the American term...


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## toms3 (28 Jan 2003)

I know exactly what ye-all are sayinâ€¦just last night during KP duty after coming back from my Recon and cleaning my M-16 â€“ the Gunnie said to me that dem things are potatoâ€™s not potaaatoâ€™s.


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## McG (28 Jan 2003)

Iâ€™m going to guess that you were still in your fatigues?


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## IceHawk (28 Jan 2003)

Or "cammies" as my Cousins in the states call them.


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## Jungle (28 Jan 2003)

> Mike
> One thing, there is a Half Mast. Its a Navy Term, for Half Staff.


Hey Recce41, right now I believe the entire Navy is "half staffed"!!! LOL...    
Sorry sailors, I can‘t make fun of the Army, we are too busy as we are in the middle of our perpetual reorganisation...


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## IceHawk (29 Jan 2003)

Has anyone mentioned being part of a squad?  Or using Bazookas?


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## Pikache (29 Jan 2003)

lef-te-nant, not loo-te-nant


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## Jarnhamar (29 Jan 2003)

Muckel. I guess that IS a canadian word but it still sounds like some kinda monster from a disney movie.
"hurry and hide before the muckles come"


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## sgt.shmedly102 (30 Jan 2003)

One thing I‘ve noticed, it seems all the "American" terms y‘all use are actually Marine terms. ‘Cammies‘ are only cammies in the Marines, if they even still call them that; we in the Army call them BDU‘s.  No one calls them ‘fatigues‘. The Marines are the ones who call their Drill Sergeants  ‘Drill Instructors‘, they call half-staff ‘half-mast‘ (what with being a naval service and all). ‘Boot camp‘ is a Marine/naval term, we call it Basic (Basic Combat Training or BCT if you want to be precise). And Gunny is short for Gunnery Sergeant which is the proper title of an E-7 in the USMC. In the Army E-7‘s are Sergeants First Class (SFC) and are addressed as ‘Sergeant‘. No NCO anywhere in the US armed forces tolerates ‘sarge‘. Then again, I always though Master Corporal sounded a little funny, until I got chewed out by one for calling him ‘corporal‘.

We do call duffle bags, ‘duffles‘, the Marines call them ‘sea bags‘. Of course if you deploy with three bags, you have an "A" bag, a "B" bag and a "C" bag, so I don‘t know how the Marines avoid confusion.

As for LT‘s, how is is spelled? I don‘t see ‘left‘ anywhere in it.

So what‘s the deal, y‘all watch ‘Full Metal Jacket‘ too many times?


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## Pikache (31 Jan 2003)

Meh. Commonwealth tradition. Ask the Brits how they got ‘lef-te-nant"


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## SpinDoc (31 Jan 2003)

I‘ve got 2 versions that I have heard explaining why "lef-tenant"...

This is can.community.military newsgroup:

"...it came from someone who was given charge of running lands in the absence of the Lord; therefore, someone who was "left tenant."  Egalement en Francais, quelqu‘un qui se trouvait "en lieu tenant" du seigneur."
- posted by "Erick"

The other explantion I‘ve heard (also from the newsgroup and from other word-of-mouth stories):

"...The legend has it that the British changed the pronunciation so that holders of that rank wouldn‘t be portrayed as living in a toilet ( a "loo tenant")."
- posted by Jay

Take your pick... I‘m not a French speaker so I can‘t vouch for the French stuff up there.


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## onecat (31 Jan 2003)

just to point it is the American‘s who changed it and have it wrong if you go by correct English.  Back in the mid 1800‘s they changed a lot of words like colour etc..... and lef-tenant is one them.


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## combat_medic (31 Jan 2003)

Spindoc: Yes, that does make sense in French (yay for french immersion)


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## sgt.shmedly102 (6 Feb 2003)

> just to point it is the American‘s who changed it and have it wrong if you go by correct English. Back in the mid 1800‘s they changed a lot of words like colour etc..... and lef-tenant is one them.


Like I said, how is it spelled? I don‘t see an ‘f‘ anywhere in it in any country. The explanation I heard from a British ‘leftenant‘ was that they just didn‘t want to sound French. Counldn‘t argue with it, but still tried to call him ‘lieutenant‘ as much as possible.

  As for color (not to mention honor, harbor, and a few others I can‘t remember right now) we just got rid of all those extraneous ‘u‘s y‘all had all over the place since we can actually pronounce the letter ‘o‘. It was just part of our overall clean-up of the American (oops, I mean  _English_)  language.

_"We have ways of making you pronounce the letter ‘o‘."_ 
_"I have no idea what you‘re talking aboot, eh?"_


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## CSS Type (7 Feb 2003)

OK, so where do you get the ‘r‘ in Colonel?


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## DnA (7 Feb 2003)

sgt.shmedly102


there‘s no "f" in the spelling, its spelt the same way as you americans spell it

its like a silent f or somthin


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## Dacier (7 Feb 2003)

If the "f" was silent, then wouldn‘t we not hear it?


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## DnA (7 Feb 2003)

that would be correct

I‘m not an english pro as you can tell


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## Anti Matter (7 Feb 2003)

It probably has its origins in Latin or Germanic like so many other words in English, French, German etc.. Or perhaps it came from Olde English.


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## sgt.shmedly102 (7 Feb 2003)

OK, so it‘s an invisible ‘f‘.  I just keep thinking of Constable Frazer from ‘Due South‘. It‘s funny when you canuks say something British since you sound so American (no offense) most of the time. [  ]

And I don‘t know where the ‘r‘ in Colonel came from; how would you pronounce it otherwise? 
Co-lo-nel?
Colo-nel?
Colon-el?


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## Jungle (7 Feb 2003)

Reference the rank of Colonel, why don‘t we simply submit a new name for the rank ? Since most Cols are career oriented a$$holes, let‘s just remove the last 2 letters... and guess what: it‘s makes perfect bilingual sense !!!


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## DnA (7 Feb 2003)

haha


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## Gunnar (7 Feb 2003)

I remember reading somewhere that the "aboot" that Americans hear in "about" has to do with a sound in Canadian English which actually indicates that the ‘U‘ is there.  Since American English has no equivalent sound any more, it is heard as the next closest equivalent, which is the "oo" sound.  There was a lot of fancy linguistic stuff to back it up too, if I recall correctly, but I don‘t remember it all.

It sounds reasonable to me because most Canadians have heard about the "aboot", and most of us can hear a definite difference between "aboot" and "about".  Usually at that point, we conclude that you haven‘t got a clue, and go merrily on our way.


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## Gunnar (7 Feb 2003)

Muckle.

As far as I know, that‘s a Scots English term, for "great" or "big".

As far as a Disney term, you must be thinking of "muggle", from Harry Potter.


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## Korus (7 Feb 2003)

I remember watching Mike Bullard one night, and an American wrote into the show to say that Canadians where stupid because they had u‘s in some words. Mike made a comment along the lines of how can we be dumb for having [/i]more_ letters and spelling things correctly... He then went on to put up cue cards, each showing words with an extra u, like harbour, and colour, He then put up one that said "Fouck you Neighbour", and kept on stressing the ‘ou‘ in Neighbour.

It was rather quite amusing.. but maybe you just had to see it for yourself...  _


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## DnA (7 Feb 2003)

lol

i wish i saw that


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