VOA慢速英语 Doughboy: Military Expressions

　　Doughboy: Military Expressions

　　This is Phil Murray with WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, a program in Special English on the Voice of America. We tell about some common expressions in American English.

　　(MUSIC)

　　A leatherneck or a grunt do not sound like nice names to call someone. Yet men and women who serve in the United States armed forces are proud of those names. And if you think they sound strange, consider doughboy and GI Joe.

　　After the American Civil War in the eighteen sixties, a writer in a publication called Beadle’s Monthly used the word doughboy to describe Civil War soldiers. But word expert Charles Funk says that early writer could not explain where the name started.

　　About twenty years later, someone did explain. She was the wife of the famous American general George Custer.

　　Elizabeth Custer wrote that a doughboy was a sweet food served to Navy men on ships. She also said the name was given to the large buttons on the clothes of soldiers. Elizabeth Custer believed the name changed over time to mean the soldiers themselves.

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