Slang

[TopSergeant]

Sailors of wet navies have added a great deal of slang to our everyday language. Going to Davy Jones' locker, deep-six that thing, clear sailing, etc etc.

Speculate on what phrases or terms might arise from a flying navy!

Here's a contribution: "Last dive"

"He's been sick and couldn't shake it, last night it got worse and he took his last dive".

[Leaderoforcs]

'Roid: short term for electroid (obviously).

Used by lazy airmen to cut down on the number of syllables they use.  "The 'roid tanks are acting up again, better get engineering in here."

[Worktroll]

Note: these aren't official, I'm just making them up ... as you all should be doing. Terms that resonate will live on, terms that don't will sink into oblivion

Sparkie - electrical engineer.
Crispy bacon - someone exposed to massive electrical discharge, eg. flashover or other accident
Toasted - to be hit by a non-lethal electrical discharge. "Did'ja hear about Smithers? Right next to the forrard port trim tank when we took that torpedo hit." "'Ow bad? Crispy?" "No, only lightly toasted. But he's still cursing." "Why?" "Took off half his precious mo', dinnit?"
Bangers - aerial torpedos.

Airship - derogatory term used to describe non-electrical flying machines (Herr Zepellin's gasbags, or those paper kite thingies made by the bicycle brothers). Calling a leviathan an "airship" is, to airmen, like calling a battleship a "boat".

Anyone determined to know period English slang for genitals should listen to "Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow-wow" sometime. Other music-hall hits of the Edwardian era are also goldmines of period scatology and filth, I'm delighted to say Anyone for a few quick verses of the Marrow Song?

"Such a lovely colour, so nice and round and fat ..."

W.

[trboturtle]

Airhead -- Derogatory turm used by the Wet navy to describe a Leviathan sailor

Wetarse -- Derogatory term used by Leviathan sailors to describe a wet navy sailor

Craig

[ravehnhuhrxt]

Bobber - a leviathan unable to move.

[Dr. Oliver Cross]

Neath -- Short for 'those beneath us', a derogatory slang term for those who don't fly, and especially for acrophobes and other who are opposed to Leviathans, or human flight in general.

Fledgling -- A term for midshipmen on their first cruise as well as cadets, proudly used, similar to middies.

Squab -- Also a term for midshipmen on their middy cruise, but... not so respectful.  Similar to snotty or snotnose.  (It's the term for an unfledged pigeon chick.)

'Taking a walk with Issac' -- falling off/out of a Leviathan.  From Issac Newton's discovery of gravity.

Atropos' Suitors -- Anyone crazy enough to volunteer for mid-flight repair duty on the outside of the ship.  (They are, after all, basically romancing the fate responsible for cutting peoples' threads, no?)

[Spence]

Some great ideas but I'd veer away from long or complex ones.  From my time in the Navy most terms were short or an acronym.

I still hear some around the hanger deck like 'Tron' or 'Tweet' for electronic or avionics types, 'BB stacker' for ordnance, 'Snipe' for people that work down in the engineering spaces.  But mostly the use of rating based nicknames seem to have fallen off these days.

For acronym's they are pronounced as words, not letters.  I always have to laugh at how idiotic actors sound when they try to be military in a show or movie and say "A"  "S"  "A"  "P", pronouncing each letter separately when for at least the 30+ years I have been in or around the military it has always been ASAP pronounced as a single word A+SAP like tree sap. 

Also remember that most professional sailors, especially in the technical ratings have a built in disdain for 'design engineers' and 'bean counters'.    I can remember very very few occasions where an engineering team would come out with a new piece of gear and be able to make it actually work on the aircraft without fixing a fundamental error in design that was readily apparent to everyone who actually works on aircraft.    Generally we discovered that the more 'educated' the engineer, the lower his common sense quotient and less willing they are to listen to 'the unwashed help'.    There were exceptions of course.  But on the main they generally are too IMportant to listen to a mere sailor, see see they have many many degrees in basket weaving 

 By the way, we called them 'Poindexters'   

[Leaderoforcs]

Mostly good points, but remember that this is the navy of the 1910s, not the 1980s+.  I'd be willing to bet acronym use isn't NEARLY as widespread, and that rank and file ratings just love to come up with interesting names for things they work with.

[Spence]

You might be surprised.  FUBAR was bouncing around before WW2 made it famous.... 

But in general nick names/acronym's were used as common shortcuts plus they all tended to stay, for lack of a better term, 'manly'.  Early radio operators were also the radio repairmen.  They have been collectively know as Sparks (or similar) for as long as there have been radiomen.  They held important jobs and not only was the name a common term so that anyone knew what he did, it was also a term of respect.  Spark's yes, Sparkie not so much.  It would be like calling him "little girl". 

Nick names usually equal a respect for the job held or the individual, but just as real they can indicate complete lack of respect. 

I only used a few examples off the top of my head from my recent experiences.  But military units have been doing this as long as they have been around.

But that just an opinion since I don't have any real documented proof to back my arguments