{"id":169,"date":"2014-05-16T15:53:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T15:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/?p=169"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:19:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:19:42","slug":"lingo-of-no-mans-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/2014\/05\/16\/lingo-of-no-mans-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Lingo of No Man’s Land"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lorenzo<\/a>

Sergt L.N. Smith (from Lingo of No Man’s Land)<\/p><\/div>\n

The magnificently named Lorenzo Napoleon Smith was born to Canadian parents in Massachusetts in May 1892. The family returned to Montreal in time for the 1911 Canadian census<\/a>. Lorenzo signed up to the Canadian Expeditionary Force in February 1915, and by May he was in the trenches near Ploegsteert with the 4th<\/sup> Battalion where, notwithstanding some heavy bombardment in June, a ‘[g]eneral spirit of “live and let live” prevail[ed]’ (War Diary of the 4th Battalion<\/em><\/a>, 28\/10\/1915).<\/p>\n

After repeated bouts of gastritis, which he later attributed to \u2018eating greasy food\u2019 (Medical History 28\/5\/1918), Smith was transferred to Shorncliffe hospital in Kent in December 1915. He was sent back to Montreal for an operation and lengthy convalescence, but failed to recover his strength. Private Smith was eventually declared medically unfit for further military service in December 1916.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a>

Illustration from Lingo of No Man’s Land by Elizabeth F. Gibson<\/p><\/div>\n

This would not be a particularly interesting story if it were not for Lorenzo\u2019s decision to re-enlist in July 1917. He was assigned to the British-Canadian Recruiting Mission, whose function was to recruit Canadian citizens in the US through rousing speeches, plays, music and parades. These included \u2018the first land-battleship ever used in the United States\u2019: a tank called Britannia.[1] The newly promoted Sergeant Smith produced a dictionary of trench slang, called Lingo of No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>, including a foreword describing a version of his military career that was almost entirely fictitious. In this, he is presented as an American citizen who was\u00a0so frustrated at his country\u2019s failure to declare war that he crossed the border into Canada to enlist. His short front-line career, punctuated by chronic ill-health, was replaced by a year of active service with the Westmount Rifles, brought to an abrupt end by shrapnel in April 1916.<\/p>\n

\"are<\/a>It might have been relatively easy at the time to justify a deception that helped the war effort \u2013 and clearly Smith considered that he had not done enough, because he was under no obligation to re-enlist \u2013 but it\u2019s hard to imagine how he felt about being seen as a battle-scarred hero in later life. In 1956, when he was 64 years old, Smith requested an official record of his military service. This might have been to check whether it would undermine the account given in Lingo of No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>, but I suspect that it was to ensure that a true account was available to his wife (and children, if they had any). His posthumous confession probably wouldn’t have been clear to its recipients unless they undertook further research, but it may have been enough to salve Smith’s conscience. The measureable costs of the war were obscene enough, but we can never understand the full extent of its effect upon individual lives, which continued long after the fighting ended.<\/p>\n

The British Library republished Lingo of No Man\u2019s Land<\/em><\/a> in March 2014, and I\u2019ve written a new introduction to it. I\u2019ll be talking about the dictionary at the \u2018Languages<\/a> and the First World War\u2019 conference in Antwerp on the 18th<\/sup> of June<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] \u2018Mission adds 46,000 to Britain\u2019s Armies\u2019 New York Times<\/em>, 22 September 1918, p. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The magnificently named Lorenzo Napoleon Smith was born to Canadian parents in Massachusetts in May 1892. The family returned to Montreal in time for the 1911 Canadian census. Lorenzo signed up to the Canadian Expeditionary Force in February 1915, and by May he was in the trenches near Ploegsteert with the 4th Battalion where, notwithstanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}