This week, Civis marks Anzac Day by examining our language legacy from World War 1 soldiers.
We can ‘‘remember them’’ through language in more ways than we realise.
Although some terms have faded behind the lines of history, many remain on the active front — and are far from archaic.
Every close-knit group develops its own idiom. The troops in the trenches shared camaraderie and danger, often enduring unbelievable, unspeakable misery.
This was fertile ground for black humour and slinging off.
That dictionary includes ‘‘quack’’ (medical officer), ‘‘wangle’’ (to contrive to gain an object), ‘‘swinging the lead’’ (pretending illness), ‘‘dud’’ (an unexploded shell, or incapable person), ‘‘possie’’ (a position or place), and ‘‘wind up’’ (nervous).
Some are not-so-common these days: ‘‘En-zedda’’ (a wound that will take a digger home), ‘‘set-in-a-crack’’ (in a safe place), ‘‘stunn’d’’ (drunk), and ‘‘jakerloo pie on the did’’ (very good, alright).
A jakerloo or jake-a-pie was Australian drivers’ slang for a secure load — everything ready to go.
Searching for ‘‘on the did’’ wasn’t straightforward. While there were plenty of reasons for mental health issues on the Western Front, today’s use as ‘‘on the dissociative identity disorder spectrum’’ misfired for 1918.
Instead, D.I.D. appears in Anzac and British military records as ‘‘draft in detail’’, temporary assignments behind the lines. It must have been a relief to be ‘‘on the did’’.
Not surprisingly, many terms are shared across the Anzacs.
Massey University professor of war studies Glyn Harper, writing on WW1 language, notes further words arising from soldiers’ experiences.
‘‘Lousy’’ came from the common complaint of being infested by lice. ‘‘Wash out’’ first described an officer who failed his commissioning course and was returned to his unit; it came to mean failure generally. ‘‘Binge’’ came from a Lancashire term for drinking too much.
‘‘Fed up’s’’ meaning is obvious. ‘‘FFF’’, ‘‘forlorn, famished and far from home’’, also makes the list, although triple F could stand for other words denoting similar emotions. Not much imagination is needed.
‘‘Back chat’’ was to answer back with impertinence, ‘‘bunk’’ to abscond, and ‘‘dingbat’’ a simpleton or halfwit, which also referred to an officer’s batman.
‘‘Hard word’’, ‘‘go to the pack’’ and ‘‘in the gun’’ are all cited as coming from the war.
‘‘Gutzer’’ meant a disappointment or misfortune, as in ‘‘to come a gutzer’’. Diggers called a near poker straight or flush with one card missing a ‘‘gutzer’’ straight or flush’’.
‘‘Cushy’’ came from Britain’s Indian Army, morphing from the Hindi Kushi, meaning pleasure. Life for our forebears on the front, sadly, was rarely cushy.
* * * *
To another field, school playgrounds, and a strange expression that’s been doing the rounds for the past year.
Civis heard and watched a 5-year-old say ‘6-7’’, and was at sixes and sevens, wondering what was going on.
It’s a viral internet meme, named 2025 word of the year by Dictionary.com.
Used by children and teenagers — typically the 11 to 14 age range — as a nonsensical interjection, it’s often accompanied by an alternating up-and-down hand motion.
It comes from the 2024 rap song Doot Doot (6 7) by United States rapper Skrilla, where the phrase is used repeatedly.
The point is that it means nothing, and it’s one of those ways adolescents assert independence and share humour.
Fear not — it is not expected to last, unlike many of those ‘‘digger’’ words. Once adults and 5-year-olds start using 6-7, it loses its cachet.
Adolescents are already moving on: apparently, ‘‘41’’ has become a thing, at least for now.
