[ti:Words and Their Stories Military Expressions] [ar:Phil Murray] [al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES] [by:www.51voa.com] [04:22.47][00:00.00]¸ü¶àÌýÁ¦Çë·ÃÎÊ51voa.com [00:07.92]This is Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, [00:13.48]a program in Special English on the Voice of America. [00:18.52]We tell about some common expressions in American English. [00:23.47]A leatherneck or a grunt do not sound like nice names to call someone. [00:30.97]Yet men and women who serve in the United States armed forces [00:36.58]are proud of those names. And if you think they sound strange, [00:42.60]consider doughboy and GI Joe. [00:47.21]After the American Civil War in the eighteen sixties, [00:52.60]a writer in a publication called Beadle's Monthly [00:57.47]used the word doughboy to describe Civil War soldiers. [01:03.37]But word expert Charles Funk says that early writer [01:08.71]could not explain where the name started. [01:12.36]About twenty years later, someone did explain. [01:17.41]She was the wife of the famous American general George Custer. [01:23.11]Elizabeth Custer wrote that a doughboy was a sweet food served to Navy men on ships. [01:31.82]She also said the name was given to the large buttons on the clothes of soldiers. [01:39.25]Elizabeth Custer believed the name changed over time to mean the soldiers themselves. [01:47.20]Now, we probably most often think of doughboys [01:51.95]as the soldiers who fought for the Allies in World War One. [01:56.55]By World War Two, soldiers were called other names. [02:01.70]The one most often heard was GI, or GI Joe. [02:07.85]Most people say the letters GI were a short way to say general issue or government issue. [02:16.55]The name came to mean several things. It could mean the soldier himself. [02:22.99]It could mean things given to soldiers when they joined the military [02:28.70]such as weapons, equipment or clothes. [02:31.99]And, for some reason, it could mean to organize, or clean. [02:36.79]Soldiers often say, "We GI'd the place." And when an area looks good, [02:43.75]soldiers may say the area is "GI." [02:47.60]Strangely, though, GI can also mean poor work, a job badly done. [02:54.61]Some students of military words have another explanation of GI. [03:00.96]They say that instead of government issue or general issue, [03:06.11]GI came from the words galvanized iron. [03:10.31]The American soldier was said to be like galvanized iron, [03:15.32]a material produced for special strength. [03:18.76]The Dictionary of Soldier Talk says GI was used for the words [03:25.27]galvanized iron in a publication about the vehicles of the early twentieth century. [03:33.02]Today, a doughboy or GI may be called a grunt. [03:38.71]Nobody is sure of the exact beginning of the word. [03:42.82]But, the best idea probably is that the name comes from the sound that troops make [03:49.32]when ordered to march long distances carrying heavy equipment. [03:54.31]A member of the United States Marines also has a strange name -- leatherneck. [04:01.41]It is thought to have started in the eighteen hundreds. [04:04.91]Some say the name comes from the thick collars of leather [04:09.61]early Marines wore around their necks to protect them from cuts during battles. [04:16.17]Others say the sun burned the Marines' necks until their skin looked like leather.