"You've Had It"

Officers of the U.S. Air Forces, ending their first year in Britain, had learned combat lessons from the Royal Air Force. They had also learned a new lingo.

Even the U.S. War Department took cognizance of British flyers' slang, solemnly announcing that "rhubarb" means "a target of opportunity." When a fighter pilot flies low over France, strafing whatever he finds -- trains, troops, airdromes --he is "on a rhubarb."

How much R.A.F. slang will seep into the dictionary is a lexicographer's guess, but some of its catchier terms have already been adopted by groundlings. Among thousands of Americans, "browned off" already means fed up. ("Brassed off" means very fed up and "cheesed off" is utterly disgusted.) To crash is to "prang." To take a "dim view" is to look upon skeptically.

Slang-hardened American flyers have been fascinated by "pukka gen," which means honest-to-God authoritative information. "Duff gen" is a wrong steer.

An R.A.F. pilot does not seek things.

He "organizes" a new plane or a beer or a furlough.

Some American terms, usually technical, have found their way into the R.A.F. Thus an airscrew has become a prop (propeller). But U.S. airmen in Britain have taken over British technical terms, too. Most now call an airplane an "aircraft."

Newest U.S. air slang in Britain, where it is always received with enthusiasm and prompt use, is "sweating out." This usually means stewing in one's own juice, as "sweating out" a reprimand from a commanding officer. But it also has less serious meanings. Airmen in England sweat out a chow line (i.e., wait for food) or a routine assignment like a training flight.

Some R.A.F. expressions wander into wondrous double talk. Example: "Can I get a taxi?" asked the American outside the Savoy. "You've had it," said the R.A.F. flyer, i.e., "You haven't got it and you won't get it."

In Cairo, the New York Herald Tribune's correspondent, John ("Tex") O'Reilly, found U.S. soldiers no less infected with the new English language: "When two Americans are having a drink they no longer shout 'Down the hatch!' They raise their glasses and say 'Cheers' in modulated tones. . ... Everybody is a 'type' of some sort: 'good type,' 'bad type' or 'good-bad type' . . . and there are innumerable other classifications: melancholy type, backward type, insistent type. ... A guy becomes a chap, and a fair number of Americans are developing the afternoon-tea habit." Observed Correspondent O'Reilly: "Americans must prepare themselves for a certain postwar shock they are going to get when the troops come home."

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