Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 April 11

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April 11

What did "lorry" mean in 1940s US?

I once found a facsimile of a guide issued to US servicemen stationed in the UK during WWII, containing information about British customs, language, etc. I remember that it contained one passage saying "If a British soldier says he is 'going to get a lorry', he doesn't mean [something], he means he is going to fetch a truck". I can't remember what the [something] was that the GI might otherwise assume the Tommy was doing. (In fact, I don't think I understood what it meant even when I read it, so it was probably an idiom that is no longer in use, or at least isn't common enough to be known in the UK now). Can anyone suggest what this [something] would have been? Iapetus (talk) 10:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Wiktionary states that it has been a term for a barrow or a wagon (possibly drawn by horses). These meanings are marked as dated / obsolete. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Dictionary.com gives a couple of alternative meanings: 2. any of various conveyances running on rails, as for transporting material in a mine or factory. 3. a long, low, horse-drawn wagon without sides. The horse-drawn wagon might have been out of date by WW2, but the mining usage might have been still relevant. 217.44.50.87 (talk) 12:07, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Is it used in the US now, to mean a truck? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 13:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

No - the Americans generally say truck, while the British say lorry (though we do know what a truck is, and do use the word for certain types of vehicle, like a dumper truck or a tipper truck). 217.44.50.87 (talk) 13:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

There's also the (admittedly slim) possibility that an American might interpret "going to get a lorry" as "planning to obtain a parrot". Particularly if he was familiar with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Deor (talk) 13:44, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Red lorie, yellow lorie. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:12, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Can someone explain these terms:

• Pick - up truck
• Utility vehicle

And what is the American term for what the British describe as a "van"? 5.150.74.195 (talk) 14:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Sure. See pickup truck and utility vehicle. Also, the British "van" I believe is usually called a box truck in the U.S. --Jayron32 14:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

There isn't really a very good direct translation, because the European and American lorry/truck markets are quite different. Nevertheless, they would probably be called a "van" (or specifically "cargo van") - that's what the US Ford website calls the Transit and what Dodge called the Ram. Americans would additionally call something like the Volkswagen Bus a van (which would be a minibus to Brits), and Brits would call the Grumman LLV a van (which Americans seem to call a truck). But that's moving away from semantics and onto boring stuff like marketing. Smurrayinchester 15:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Just a side note; Ram is no longer a model name under the Dodge brand. Since 2010, Ram Trucks has become it's own "Make" instead of merely a "model". Prior to 2010, "Dodge" was the "make" and "Ram" was the model. Since 2010, Chrysler-Fiat has spun off Ram as its own make. During the 2010-2011 Chrysler Fiat reorganization, what had been "Dodge" was split into three new divisions: the new Dodge which only handles passenger cars and minivans, SRT for high performance vehicles such as the Dodge Viper, and Ram Trucks for commercial vehicles such as pickups and full-sized vans. --Jayron32 16:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• Incidentally, I don't think a US box truck is necessarily a UK van either. A small one used for local deliveries (such as what the grocery delivery service Ocado uses) would be a van, but a bigger one used for freight like this would be a lorry. Smurrayinchester 15:53, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

True, reading the definitions, in the UK, "van" is a word based on purpose of vehicle (carrying cargo) while in the US, "van" is based on the vehicle body type, regardless of it's purpose. So there isn't a good one-to-one translation. --Jayron32 15:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

From the OP's description, I was sure I knew the publication: Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942, which was republished in a facsimile edition about a decade ago. I have a copy myself, not to hand, alas. However, I cannot find the phrase referred to in online searches. The full text is available here, and there is only one occurrence each of "truck" and "lorry".

Some Hints on British Words. British slang is something you will have to pick up for yourself. But even apart from slang, there are many words which have different meanings from the way we use them and many common objects have different names. For instance, instead of railroads, automobiles, and radios, the British will talk about railways, motor-cars, and wireless sets. [...] Automobile lingo is just as different. A light truck is a lorry. The top of a car is the hood. What we call the hood (of the engine) is a bonnet. The fenders are wings. A wrench is a spanner. Gas is petrol-if there is any.

Does this fit the bill? Apparently there is a similar booklet for American troops in Australia. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia 1942. Here's "the dinkum oil" (no-one would use that term now). --Shirt58 (talk) 04:00, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

If I was unfamiliar with the term, I might think the Brit was saying "He was going to get a Laurie", and assume that's some generalized slang term for a woman, like Sheila is in Australia. StuRat (talk) 01:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Has "Laurie" ever meant "woman" in the US? I don't think so. Remember, the guide book told American soldiers that if they heard "lorry", they mustn't mistake it for some word they were familiar with. So the question is, what might "lorry" mean to an American, or alternatively, what word might an American mistake for "lorry"? Akld guy (talk) 05:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Knowing that women's first names often take on other meanings, like Patsy, Sheila, Mary, etc., this is how I would have interpreted it, had I not already known what a lorry was. I wouldn't know what "Laurie" meant, specifically, though. StuRat (talk) 06:01, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Posting by banned user removed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

GI = "General Infantryman", but the term was later taken to mean any serviceman in any military branch. SUV = "Sport Utility Vehicle". StuRat (talk) 15:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Another point was that "truck" and "lorry" had specific meanings in the 1940s British Army, a truck being below a specific weight (which I can't find a reference for!). Alansplodge (talk) 15:35, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

There is also the Hand truck, which may be loosely referred to as a truck. Akld guy (talk) 20:35, 12 April 2016 (UTC)