Pavilion Books, 6 Jun 1990
Hardback
ISBN-10: 1851455264
ISBN-13: 978-1851455263
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In a classic Monty Python sketch set ‘Somewhere in England, 1944’, a Squadron Leader returns from a mission to tell his colleagues, “Top hole! Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how’s your father. Hairy blighter, dickie-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspie, flipped over on his Betty Harper’s and caught his can in the Bertie!” Another pilot rushes in to announce, “Bunch of monkeys on your ceiling, sir! Grab your egg and fours and let’s get the bacon delivered!” Both are greeted with blank incomprehension.
As well they might: the sketch is surreal and hilarious because it presents a language that has a ring of authenticity, but is in fact bunk. What is especially nonsensical about a couple of pilots talking gibberish that sounds as if it might be genuine RAF slang is that anyone in the RAF who ever spoke exclusively in what the Pythons dubbed ‘banter’ would have been mocked unmercifully – just as a Cockney who spoke only rhyming slang would be thought decidedly odd. Instead, like any professional jargon, the RAF slang that arose during the Second World War was sprinkled into regular English, but understandable only by the initiated, thus subtly singling its users out like the members of some exclusive club. What was unusual, though, was that so many of these colourful, often highly specialised terms, were ultimately to trickle out to become part of our everyday language.
In 1945, when Eric Partridge compiled A Dictionary of RAF Slang, he could not have known which of these words and phrases would have entered common parlance, but he diligently collected the whole stock and attempted to explain their origins. Many of those he scooped into his lexicographic net have since entered the category of ‘how did we manage without them?’ At risk of returning to the Python minefield, just consider those embedded in the following:
New recruits to the RAF were called sprogs (hence, in certain circles, babies are so-called today). If they weren’t too bright they might be identified as goons, while some of the chaps from the better schools could well have been toffee-nosed. RAF crews spent a lot of time waiting around with their oppos for a scramble, so they very probably got browned off; the op might be scrubbed, or, after receiving some gen, they might footle around the countryside searching for the enemy. On landing someone would ask, “any joy?” A less than perfect touch down, of course, could result in a prang or even a write-off, in which the pilot might, sadly, be gone for a Burton.
No one was better qualified than Eric Honeywood Partridge (to give him his splendid full name) to compile a dictionary of RAF slang. He was born in 1894 on a remote farm in New Zealand. In the First World War he served with the Australian army at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. He studied at Queensland and Oxford universities and taught for a while before becoming a professional writer and establishing the Scholartis Press. In the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force. He achieved international renown for his scholarly and entertaining books on the English language, many of which have long been regarded as standard works, among them Usage and Abusage, Origins and his classic A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English [new edition: The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, edited by Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, 2 vols., Routledge, 2006]. He even wrote the definitive book on The Shaggy Dog Story.
I used to see him at work in what was then called the British Museum Library, usually muffled up against the cold and wearing a hat, and always seated at the same desk. I never met him, but I always thought he looked like an agreeable old cove – an opinion reinforced by my using his many superb dictionaries, for there is often a twinkle of humour in his explanations of a word’s origin (did he really believe some of them himself?), and he was never ashamed to admit if he had not a clue as to the source of some arcane piece of slang, throwing the challenge open to his readers.
Eric Partridge died in 1979, but many of his books live on. Some of them have never been out of print, but this one somehow fell by the wayside. In the 50th anniversary year of the Battle of Britain, when this edition was published, it seemed appropriate to bring it back both as a tribute to those who served in the RAF and as an entertaining handbook for those who, at the time, were not even sprogs.
(Adapted from my introduction to the book)
Link: Wikipedia entry on Eric Partridge
