Not to offend - new signature line.

[Rusty]

Got this out of "Coyote Wind" by Peter Bowen. His protagonist was remembering his dad make do with half busted equipment he kept on fixing, usually commenting on the ancestry of whomever had built the busted machinery to start with.

I've worked in machine shops, lived near Ghost Towns, ( and Hawthorne is on it's way there ) my great-grandad was a blackmith, and my grand-dad was a mule skinner and helped build US 99.

I close my eyes and think of any construction job I can remember and can't help but hear profanity rolling out of the mouths of the sunburned, dirty, sweaty, stinking workers just trying to keep the foremen off their backs.

How could it possibly not be true?

 

[Roadrunner]

Sounds pretty accurate to me. I curse like a sailor whenever I'm working on my car, usually when I realize I've managed to break or scratch some other part of it.

 

[Bill Martino]

I swear (often and with admirable proficiency) like a sailor because I was one.

 

[tbarahon]

That's nothing, in spanish(my mothertonge)I can go for 20 min without repiting myself. My level of proficiency in English it's still not that good but it is improving, thanks mainly to the assistance of the shipping department...

Tbar

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

What some consider swear words, soldiers consider verbs, adjectives, and sometimes nouns. First time around "decent folk" after returning from a deployment, one must make a dedicated and conscious effort to police up one's vocabulary.

Sarge

 

[Roadrunner]

Very true Sarge. I slipped up a few times while I was home last time, not enough to offend anyone but enough to get some strange looks. There's worse things I could be known for though.

 

[BillTheCat]

"...What some consider swear words, soldiers consider verbs, adjectives, and sometimes nouns"

 

[Tommy_Atkins]

Originally posted by Sylvrfalcn
What some consider swear words, soldiers consider verbs, adjectives, and sometimes nouns.

Sarge

heh. You forgot "punctuation".

 

[Sylvrfalcn]

heh. You forgot "punctuation".

Right you are Tommy, good catch. While on the subject, it's interesting to note that the word/term "huah (hoo-ah)" can have a wide variety of meanings depending on the tone, inflection, and context in which it's used. Huah can be good, bad, enthusiastic, sarcastic ("keeping people on shift for 28 hours rail loading vehicles, that's pretty huah sir" ), even pleading (First Sgt;"the CO's offered us up to pull guard duty on the north ECP, Jones, Murphy, Brown, I need you to come with me.....huah....."). Fact is, and I ain't making fun of my Army brethren, but fact is you can pretty well get through an Army staff meeting if the only three words you know are "huah", "check", and "roger".

Sarge