Trench Talk: Slang and Banter in WW1
The First World War was one of the most catastrophic and impactful events in British history, and the soldiers’ experience of it has often been boiled down to mud, blood, poison gas and ‘going over the top’. But, there are aspects of life that were fundamental to a soldier’s experience that have been simply overlooked. For example, the ‘Trench Talk’; the way in which the soldiers communicated with one another, how they voiced their feelings and emotions, and even, how they interacted with the public back home. Slang and banter would be crucial parts in how the soldiers on the front experienced and dealt with the horrors of war.
Slang is, and always has been a commonplace part of everyday life. This was no different in the Trenches of WW1. Thousands of terms were to be coined in the mud, destruction and boredom of the trenches, many of which we still use today. Words like, ‘Blighty’, ‘Khaki’ and ‘Pukka’.
Slang took many different forms, some were born out of the Anglicising of French towns, like, ‘Funky Villas’ for Foncquevillers, some were almost forced upon them by the media, like ‘Tommy’, and others were adopted and adapted from other languages. This made slang a crucial unifying force at the Front, with soldiers from different regiments, nations, backgrounds and ethnicities able to connect through the common colloquialism.
The word ‘Blighty’ came from the Hindi for foreign and was applied to British soldiers. This would be adopted and adapted to become synonymous with Britain itself; ‘khaki’ came an Urdu word for ‘dust’, matching the tan colour of their uniforms; ‘Pukka’ was derived from a similar Hindustani word, and became commonplace in the trenches, meaning good, correct, smart or genuine; and ‘narpoo’ was adapted from the French ‘il n’y a plus’, meaning all gone. Men from any background could connect and relate with each other through these crudely Anglicised words.
This even extended to class differences, with men from varying class backgrounds depending on shared slang to communicate and be effective as fighting units. And, as Eric Partridge wrote in 1933, ‘The mixings of classes is more potent than the mixing of the nations’.
This even found its way to the Home Front, with those left behind often adopted the slang their sons, brothers, lovers or husbands used on the front. Helen Smith wrote in her 1930 semi-autobiographical novel ‘Not So Quiet’, that her posh mother had even picked up a few terms from deep within leafy Wimbledon: ‘”What will Mrs Evans-Mawnington say … to my daughter taking a cushy job in England?” How well up in war-slang is Mother’.
Slang was able to be a unifying force for those serving on the front together, building some commonality and shared language that helped their effectiveness and camaraderie.
Similarly, slang could give a sense of belonging to those joining the front lines, building a sense of brotherhood through the shared language.
Being able to hold a conversation that was laden with slang gave the soldiers a sense of ‘in-ness’, where they were part of the brotherhood, part of the clique, and shared more than just their experience. They belonged to this group.
The Home Front looked to get in on it too, with some Trench slang, like ‘Sighing Sarah’ for a German shell, being introduced to the public by soldiers convalescing, on leave or back home. Newspapers picked it up, writing articles about the slang, like the Daily Mirror in 1914, that wrote under the headline, ‘Irrepressible Humour’. While many of these terms ended up disappearing from public colloquialism very quickly, some stuck.
Often, however, trench newspapers became resentful of the attempts of those back home to get involved. The public began to suggest slang for the soldiers at the front, as the 5th Gloucester Gazette Newspaper wrote in 1915, ‘Our esteemed contemporary – The Cheltenham Chronicle – is a little disappointed with the title of our paper, and suggests the more ‘frightful’ title – e.g. “The Asphyxiator”. Surely the “Fifth GAZ-ette” is practically the same’. The Home Front weren’t involved, they weren’t experiencing what the soldiers were experiencing, and therefore, had no right to try and join the brotherhood and its slang.
Slang also afforded soldiers with a means of avoidance; as a way to express their emotions and feelings without having to address them head on.
‘Going west’, ‘getting it’, ‘copping it’, became colloquialisms for death, where the soldiers could refer to death without it being too real. ‘Getting the wind up’ and even ‘getting ‘em’ were terms used to disguise their fear. These were shared by all the soldiers in the trench, so all could understand and engage with their fear, anxiety, terror or horror, without having to directly deal with it. It gave the soldiers an ‘out’, a way to express their feelings without compromising on their masculinity or status within the group.
Banter was also a means by which the soldiers could not only deal and engage with their surroundings, but could also interact with their enemy.
In diaries and memoirs, it can be seen that soldiers would hurl insults across No-Man’s Land. Like, ‘Come on Fritz!’ in harsh, mock-German accents, while their foes would reply with something like ‘No blooming fear!’ in their best, cut-glass English accents.
For example, in the diaries of Sapper John French, this exact interaction is recounted.
‘Saw a rather curious thing in the trenches this morning, heard some shouting and laughing and saw a German leaning over the parapet and shouting across to our men who were also leaning over the parapet. The distance is about 75 yards. One of our men shouting ‘Come on over Fritz’. Fritz shouted back in perfect English, ‘No blooming fear’. In fact, they could all speak good English. This went on for half an hour and then heads were down and the war went on the same as usual.’
These moments were often found during unofficial ceasefires, when the fighting could stop and silence would descend on the battlefield. These exchanges were mostly good-natured, and served to lift the mood. They would break the tension, and could help the soldiers to deal with the stalemate and taut anticipation of the omnipresent destruction.
Slang and banter were fundamental aspects of the soldiers experience of the First World War, helping to forge a sense of unity and belonging, enabling them to voice their feelings and emotions in a more inconspicuous way, and helping to alleviate, if only momentarily the tension and pressure of war.
Further Reading:
Julian Walker, Slang and World War One, The British Library, 2014
Julian Walker, Slang terms at the Front, The British Library, 2014
Martin Pegler, Soldiers’ Songs and Slang of the Great War (Osprey Publishing), 2014
Whizz Bangs and Wind-Ups: 10 Tommy Slang Terms, The Imperial War Museum
‘Trench Talk: Some Characteristic Slang Creations of the Soldiers’, Everybody’s Magazine, (The Ridgway Company, New York), January 1918
Cyril Dixon, ‘Banter in battlefield, how soldiers fired off insults from trenches’, The Express, 2009
Peter Doyle, Julian Walker, Trench Talk: Words of the First World War (History Press Ltd.), 2012
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