Brian in Dallas, Texas, wants to know the origin of the skinny as in “all the details and information.” This expression may go all the way back to slang used at the U.S. Naval Academy in the early 1900s. This is part of a complete...
A speech pathologist in Greensboro, North Carolina, named Linda reports that when none of her coworkers offered to take up a task, their boss voluntold one of them to do it. A jocular combination of volunteer and told, this slang is often heard in...
Haddie from Houston, Texas, is curious about the phrase as long as Pat stayed in the Army, which applies to something short-lived. The phrase appears in Kentucky newspapers as early as 1898. No one’s sure who Pat was, although perhaps...
John, a Navy veteran in San Diego, California, shares some pranks played on new recruits. One involves sending a newbie to the boatswain’s locker for ten yards of gig line. In military jargon, a gig line is the imaginary line from the middle...
A cumshaw artist is that clever, resourceful person in a military unit who always seems to manage to procure whatever’s needed. This term apparently derives from similar-sounding words in Mandarin, kan hsieh, or kam-si?, in the language spoken...
Alex from Columbia, Missouri, wonders about rank and file, meaning “the members of the body of an organization as opposed to its leaders.” In 12th-century France, the words renc or ranc referred to a row of soldiers. The word file means...