War Words in England

Abstract

T HE ENGLISH have a great many newspaper columnists like our own, and at the beginning of World War II those of the Walter Winchell moiety devoted themselves assiduously to coining new war words for civilian use. A few such deliberate coinages gained popularity, for example, macon and Lord Haw-Haw, both invented by William Hickey of the London Daily Express.' Even the austere editorial writers of the London Times and the Manchester Guardian took a hand in the business, and some of the newspapers offered prizes for apt suggestions. In March, 1941, Lord Woolton, head of the food ministry, made an appeal for a better name for the recently established community feeding centers. The London Daily Mail took over the servicing of this appeal, and printed many of the proposals sent in,2 but nothing was concocted that seemed to take the public fancy. When one of the feeding centers was opened at Cowes the local authorities began to call it a council cafeteria, which fitted it admirably, but the Americanism was denounced by Sir Godfrey Baring, who called it 'a dreadful word' and 'wondered whether it had any official existence.'3 In the end the new establishments were called British