Notes for Readers of Laurie’s Letters
1. Habitual spelling and other peculiarities:
use = us
minuits (or minuites) = minutes
fell = feel
Laurie tends to use commas in place of periods and vice versa, though not consistently.
2. Abbreviations and expressions
- bull ring
- training ground behind the lines
- Blighty [one]
- wound bad enough to send soldier back to Britain
- "blue cloths"
- blue uniform worn by convalescing wounded soldiers, beginning with the Crimean War and continuing through World War II.
- C.B.
- confined to barracks
- crumb
- louse
- green envelope
- soldiers in France were issued one green envelope per month which could be sealed and was supposedly exempt from censorship. On their honour, soldiers were not to include any information about location, strength, etc. in these green envelopes.
- I.T.C.
- invalided to Canada
- M.C.A.
- Military Commissions Act???
- mulligan
- Irish stew (the term refers to North American "hobo" food, so it may have been used only by the Canadian contingent in France.)
- napoo
- dead; possibly from French "il n'y a plus"
- limber
- “the detachable front part of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels and an axle, a pole, and a frame holding one or more ammunition boxes” (Google)
- shin plaster
- paper money
- s.c.a. or S.C.A
- Soldiers Christian Association
- S.A.
- Salvation Army
- Tin Town
- a local group of small shops
- toot sweet
- a local group of small shops
- V or Vi
- Vimy Ridge
3. Undecipherable or unlikely words
Undecipherable or unlikely words are typed in blue and followed by three question marks and enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [gergjs???]
4. Passages of limited sense.
Passages that make limited sense are reproduced exactly as is.
5. Material in Blue
I have inserted material in blue (e.g., “fragment” or “page 3” or “no signature”) to make it possible (perhaps!) to locate missing pages.
6. Everything typed exactly as it appears
The reader should assume that everything is typed exactly as it appears in the letters. I have used [sic] in blue and square brackets very rarely, where one of his slips could be confusing if the reader doesn’t know that it is Laurie’s mistake, not mine. He sometimes repeats or omits words; I have typed everything as is. Spell checker always alerts for repeated words, and I always check to make sure that it really was repeated in the original.
Terms that somebody could explain:
“hold all and house wife you made me” (17-01-02)
Possibly useful references:
Saskatchewan Archives
reference Laurie’s letters 17-01-02 and 17-01-02 Otto
Compton Art Gallery, Chapel, etc. (17-01-11)
Old Magazine Articles
Brock lighter for “bomb” (grenade) (17-01-11)