About the book
FUBAR: F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition
Soldier Slang of World War II
by Gordon L Rottman
F***ed (or Fouled) Up Beyond All Recognition – a typical situation appraisal by wartime soldiers.
The soldier slang of World War II was as colourful as it was evocative. It could be insulting, pessimistic, witty and even defeatist. From phrases like ‘spam-bashers’ (American – an amateur prostitute or promiscuous girl after food rather than money) to ‘passion wagons‘ (British – a lorry transporting single-minded men on pass to town) and ‘roof pigs‘ (German – ‘Dachschwein‘– a cat lovingly raised as food by desperate civilians suffering meat shortages) to a ‘dinkum digger‘ (Australian – solid reliable soldier) the World War II fighting man was never short of slang to describe the people and events in his life.
FUBAR: F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition is a compact dictionary which takes a frank look at the Commonwealth, American and German slang used by the men on the ground and shows how, even in the heat of action, they somehow managed to retain their sense of humour, black though it might have been.
Table of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Author's Note
- Introduction
- Phonetic Alphabets
- PART I Tommy, Aussie, Canuck and Kiwi Talk – British Commonwealth Army Slang
- PART II GI and Gyrene Jargon – US Army and Marine Corps Slang
- PART III Landserdeutsch – German Army Slang
- Appendix 1 Imperial Japanese Army Slang
- Appendix 2 Red Army Slang
- Appendix 3 Armoured Fighting Vehicles Nicknames and Slang
- Abbreviations
- Select Bibliography
Book details
- Price: £9.99 / US $15.95 / CAN $21.00
- US Publish date: 11th September 2007
- UK Publish date: 10th September 2007
- Format: 185 x 120mm, hardback
- Number of pages: 266pp
- US ISBN: 978 1 84603 175 5
- UK ISBN: 978 1 84603 176 2