h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've always used the word "sprog" as descriptive of a babe in the womb, newborn child, or "ofspring" in general, without being overly bothered as to where it came from.

Surprised to find the origin of the term is in the Royal Air Force, of all places: apparently a recruit or a newly-minted Aircraftsperson is a "sprog" in RAF-parlance. (ie, "What do you make of your new sprog pilot, Dickie?" "Shows promise, Douggie, as long as he realises the kite's meant to be landed in one piece, and not in enough parts for an Airfix kit")

Presumedly, "Sprog human being", ie, recruit to the human race, at the moment knowing nothing and more of a liability than an asset, is a step onwards from RAF slang.

I'd be interested in the origin of the Army slang word for RAF personnel, "Crabs". Where does that come from?

I do know the Army generates its slang quite wickedly.... for inastance, because the standard uniform for a Falklands Islands civilian is a donkey jacket and a wooly cap, the first Toms ashore in the Falklands called the locals "Bennies" after a not-too-bright character in "Crossroads" who wore a little wooly cap.

Once the Falklanders cottoned on and complained, British personnel were advised not to call locals "Bennies" on pain of disciplinary action.

A Very Senior Officer then heard a private soldier referring to the locals as "Stills".

"Why do you call them that, private?"

"well, sir, because they're still Bennies"

A similar thing happened in Germany. After Daily Orders adjoined troops nopt to call local German civilians "squareheads" on the grounds this was causing offence and the Jerries were complaining about it, overnight the reference term for Germans became "boxheads" or "boxes". (I doi apologise to any German friends reading this, btw)

Just picked up on another from today's Front Page.

In the 1980's, the British Army in Northern Ireland picked up a new euphemism for scoring a hit on a target and hopefully taking an (IRA) player out of the game - ie, by shooting them.

The expression "tabbing", for shooting somebody, had been around for quite some time; those of us who stopped to think about it presumed it had to do with tying the tab on the deceased's big toe in the mortuary.

All of a sudden, the term "slotting" entered the vocabulary to describe the same thing. Again, nobody knew where it came from but everyone started using it.

The interesting thing was that if you kept your ears open, you heard IRA supporters using exactly the same word to describe one of theirs taking out a Tom or a peeler. Had we picked up the word from the opposition?

Twenty years on, reading today's Front Page article on Irish football, I realise we probably did.

The "sliotar" is the name for the ball used in Irish field sports: being hit by one apparently more than stings a bit.

Maybe PIRA used the anology to describe a succesful bit of sniping "Ah Jeez, ye slotted that bloody Brit, so you did" and by some weird osmosis it filtered over to our side...

after all, while I would hesitate for legal reasons to describe the GAA as the IRA at play, there's no denying that the governing body of Irish field sports is traditionally Irish Republican and anti-British.

Just a couple of things though worth considering - one is that hurling is essentially a sport played in southern Irish counties (Munster, southern Leinster). Apart from small hurling areas in N.I. (a few villages in Down and Antrim), the sport is not very popular there. Secondly, the name sliotar is pronounced "slitter" - which is somewhat different to "slotting". To me the connection is tenuous. It could equally come from slaughter or slot machines (ie. hitting the jackpot). However in essense it's quite likely that there was some sort of osmosis going on. The more at odds two groups become, the more similarly they often behave...

Irish republicanism and the GAA certainly have a long history, although to be fair I never remember people selling An Poblacht or the Easter Lily during matches, or there being any overt signs of support for the IRA. The GAA is very conservative, and has strong connections with the Irish Government, the Gardai (police force) and the Catholic Church, none of whom have much time for an organisation whose stated objective it is to depose them as an illegal entitity and to set up a Marxist state in their stead.

AgProv, I was told that the term "crabs" for RAF derives from their blue uniforms, which are a similar colour to the ointment prescribed for this unfortunate affliction.