bards!)--and thus the vogue developed. This is only a theory. The one
thing certain is that a clumsy form of slang, devoid of the humour and
compactness which justify slang--and which were on the whole once
characteristic of metropolitan slang--has tickled the ear of some
millions of men who, but for the war, would never have fallen under its
temptation. The only thing to hope for is that it will run its course
and perish--like "What ho, she bumps!" and "Now we shan't be
long!"--without leaving any visible and permanent trace upon the
language.

"Clicked," another word used by my trench-feet associate, resembles much
modern slang in the breadth and elasticity of its application. To click
can be either advantageous or baneful, according to the circumstances. A
soldier asks a superior for a favour, and it is granted. That soldier
has clicked. Or if he finds a nice girl to walk out with, he has
clicked. Or if he is given a coveted post, he has clicked. But he has
also clicked if he is suddenly seized on to do some menial duty. He has
clicked if he is discovered in a misdeed. And he has clicked a packet if
he gets into trouble generally. On such an occasion, it may be added,
the N.C.O. or officer who administers a reproof ("ticks him off"), and
does so in angry terms, "goes in off the deep end."

Not all army slang is lacking, indeed, in a facetious irony. Miserable
conditions in the desert or in the trenches, bad accommodation, doubtful
food--anything which cannot arouse the faintest enthusiasm of any
sort--these, in the lingo of our now much-travelled and stoical troops,
are "nothing to write home about." Surely there is an admirable spirit
in this sarcasm. It crops up again in the hospital metaphor "going to
the pictures." That is Tommy's way of announcing that he is to go under
the surgeon's knife, on a visit to the operating theatre. Again, there
is a sardonic tang in the army's condemnation of one who has been
telling a far-fetched story: he has been "chancing his arm" (or "mit").
Similarly one detects an oblique and wry fun in the professional army
man's use of the word "sieda" to mean "socks." (The new army more feebly
dubs them "almond rocks.") "Sieda" has been brought by the Anzacs from
Cairo, and with them it means "Good morning!"--a mere friendly hail, now
used with great frequency. But the veterans of older expeditions in
Egypt and in India, when they had been on the march, took their socks
from their perspir