The English expressions coined in WW1

After the introduction of conscription in 1916, the distinction between soldiers and civilians became less clear, and vocabulary passed readily from one group to the other. This is the case with a number of words borrowed from Indian languages by the British military in the 19th Century, perhaps the most well-known of which is Blighty. The Urdu words vilayat ("inhabited country", specifically Europe or Britain) and vilayati ("foreign", or "British, English, European") were borrowed by the British in the 19th Century. Both are still used in South Asian English. But it was the regional variant bilayati - rendered as Blighty in English and meaning "Britain, England, home" - which really took off in Britain. Although it was first used during the Boer war, it was not until WW1 that Blighty spread widely and developed new meanings. A blighty wound was a wound sufficiently serious to merit being sent home, and one might also be hit by a blighty bullet inflicting such a wound. Similarly, cushy ("easy, comfortable") was borrowed from Urdu kusi in the 19th Century, but spread to civilian use only in WW1.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o67CZ5qopV%2Bjsri%2FjqaYoJmqnrumeZFvaXBvZ2h%2F