another silly question. sorry.

its been bugging me!

why are doughboys called doughboys? and was it all american personnel or one particular arm? was it just WW1?

3 silly questions for the price of one. please be kind!

phil

I've always heard it had to do with the shape of their uniform buttons, but as I don't think any source I've seen ever explained more closely than that, I suppose it's some kind of cultural reference that I, being a non-American, don't get...

Also, AFAIK they were not called "doughboys", but called themselves that. A minor but sometimes important difference I think the nickname applied to pretty much the entire AEF, and only in WWI.

The book of the same title suggests it comes from teh campaign in Mexico where the PBI ended up so muddy nad dusty that they looked like adobi walls!

Mike

The book of the same title suggests it comes from teh campaign in Mexico where the PBI ended up so muddy nad dusty that they looked like adobi walls!

Mike

...it seems no-one knows for sure! both your ideas are supported by this guys work

http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/origindb.htm

thanks again

phil

From <http://www.word-detective.com/011098.html#doughboy>;

Dear Word Detective: A Social Studies teacher I know is trying to find out why American infantrymen in World War I came to be known as "doughboys." My dictionary also refers to the term "doughfoot" as having the same meaning. Did it have something to do with feet that were swollen like rising dough? -- Jan Lundeberg, via the Internet.

The human mind is a funny thing, especially, apparently, mine. I read your letter and, being a good American consumer, I immediately thought of cute little Pop'n Fresh (or however you spell his infernal name), "the Pillsbury Doughboy" of a thousand TV commercials. Sad, isn't it? You probably won't be surprised to learn that I used to own a cat named after a popular fabric softener.

There turns out to be quite a bit of controversy about the origin of "doughboy" as a slang term for a soldier or infantryman, but one certainty is that the term is much older than most people would suspect. Although it gained currency in popular use during World War I, "doughboy" first showed up in print in 1847, before the American Civil War. General George Armstrong Custer's widow mentioned the term in her memoirs written in 1887, explaining that "doughboys" were small doughnuts often served to sailors aboard ship. According to Mrs. Custer, the term was applied to infantrymen because the large brass buttons on their uniforms reminded someone of these naval "doughboys." Lending support to at least the culinary aspect of Mrs. Custer's theory is the fact that "doughboy" has meant "a boiled flour dumpling" to sailors since about 1685.

There are other theories about "doughboy," such as those tracing the term to the adobe clay barracks housing soldiers in the American Southwest at that time ("adobe boys" becoming "doughboys"), or soldiers using adobe dust to whiten their white uniform belts, or soldiers' boots being caked with adobe mud. None of these theories is impossible, but neither is any especially convincing.

If I had to pick a theory, I'd say that it's most likely that "doughboys" owed their moniker to those little doughnuts Mrs. Custer mentioned -- not because the soldiers wore buttons that resembled them, but because "doughboys" were a staple of the military diet at the time.

1847! Looks like the doughboys are older than they look!
Tom

thanks tom. i gotta say that i thought this was a silly question and that someone on this forum would come back with a definitive answer. but it seems that no-one knows for sure.

here's what i believe

1. the term originated in the american-mexican war, whenever that was (first half of the 19th century sometime)

2. became popular and widespread in the Great War because communications and mass media were better and journalists needed a term to use in their patriotic reporting

3. i also think (just my opinion) on balance of probability that the corruption of 'adobe' is the likely source (like mike cooper said - thanks again mike). this also happened with 'Gringo' from the same war i think - the maximillian expedition wore green uniforms and the mexicans shouted "green go" at them in english but with mexican accents and this became gringo. so if it happened for that word, it could have happened for 'adobe'

what do you think?

phil

.....by the truckload!

What "do I think" Phil? I think your gonna be sorry you asked!(c:#*

Well first there really is no silly questions! I also think there are no easy answers to many questions.

I think that there is more than one possible/plausible answer to the doughboy question and that the "truth" will never be 100% known so I'm going with "all of the above". I believe that your explanation as how the term doughboy became so popular is without a doubt spot on. The telegraph with its ability to disseminate information almost "instantly", by early 20 centuary standards, throughout the entire globe combined with the railway systems and the improved road system permitted the fast destitution of newspapers with news often only hours old was revolutionary in the distribution of information.

Oh my god you did it again-another can of worms!
With- “this also happened with 'Gringo' from the same war i think - the maximillian expedition wore green uniforms and the mexicans shouted "green go" at them in english but with mexican accents and this became gringo. so if it happened for that word, it could have happened for adobe”!

How about this for an explanation for Gringo-
When Davie Crockett, Jim Bowie and the other heroes of Texas's war against Mexico were besieged in the Alamo, they had a small force of about eighty Scots mercenaries with them. The Scots' marching song was the folk-tune 'Green Grow the Rashes O' and that is why Santa Ana's army and finally the whole of Mexico called the Americans Gringos." There are two songs called “Green Grow the Rushes Oh” one is “traditional” author unknown the other is by none other than Robert Burns-both songs well known to the Scots.
Or alternatively we have-
English dictionaries say that the word gringo is derived from the Spanish word Griego, which means Greek, with the connotation of ``foreigner,'' much as in the English expression ``it's all Greek to me.''
Take your pick as to which is true!

Now just don’t as - "How did we get the term "G.I."?"
(c:#*

Tom

i've always thought that GI stood for General Infantryman

thats an unusual song for a Scots unit; being an englishman myself I've always been on the recieving end of scots' vitriole, even racism, usually their songs are anti-english (like a lot of the welsh and the irish songs), eg flower of scotland. but the idea seems plausible. we could just as easily have been called 'Rushies' then!

Phil

G.I. comes from Government Issue surely?

1. Government Issue
2. General Infantryman
3. Galvanized Iron

Many utilitarian items of the era where made from galvanized Iron, including some that where made specifically for the “fighting man”. Galvanized iron was “strong, cheep, popular” and lent itself easily to “mass produced (conscription)” technology you could find it everywhere in everyday life. Now doesn’t this just like American Soldiers-the G.I’s?

Now I’m not saying that’s the origin of G.I. but it is just one more possibility.

It just shows to go you that you should never confuse a thing by its name or assume that a name is what the thing is.

Tom

RFLMAO @ "Rushies".

The Scots Irish and Welsh all singing “anti-English” songs, as all three of England "neighbors" are indulging in the same method of vocalizing dissent, it would suggest to me that maybe they just might have a legitimate reasons for feeling some form of resentment.

But I'm not going down that road as we'd both find that "can of worms" replaced by a "huge tanker of (very active and extremely angry) worms"!

Tom