Canadian soldiers coped with life on the front line during the First World War by developing their own 'trench language', new research suggests. In a study published in War in History, Dr Tim Cook from the Canadian War Museum explores letters and other documents written by soldiers during the conflict that reveal that the men swore habitually and used slang terms to refer to objects and events. By comparing these records with those used in earlier studies into the use of language, Cook suggests that the use of slang - referring to German hand grenades as 'potato mashers', for instance - acted as a 'shield', allowing combatants to trivialise death. The use of swearwords, meanwhile, is suggested to have been useful in offering relief from the discipline and stress of warfare. Both forms of expression, Cook argues, were designed to distinguish soldiers from civilians. Swearing became habitual without the customary need to tone down vulgarities in the presence of women and children, and lewd songs acted as an expression of masculinity that forged bonds of camaraderie.
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