Original slang part of Anzac tradition

ISTANBUL - Anzac soldiers who landed on Gallipoli to fight the Turks in 1915 developed their own unique slang, which has survived for 90 years.

The slang words had their origin from the time the Anzac soldiers trained in Egypt before heading to Gallipoli.

The term Anzac itself was coined by a New Zealand soldier, Sergeant Keith Little, who tired of repeating the Australian New Zealand Army Corps in military documents and correspondence.

For many of the New Zealand soldiers, their deployment to Egypt and then to Gallipoli was their first taste of a foreign language and culture and the Anzac slang was strongly influenced by the Arabic language.

The soldiers had an affectionate name for the popular and genial general who led the Anzacs, Sir William Birdwood.

They nicknamed him Birdie and he survived the Gallipoli landings without his reputation being tarnished, unlike some of the other officers.

But General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander in chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, was not universally liked.

The soldier, knighted in 1902 for his contribution to the Boer War, remained optimistic - in spite of the soaring death rate among Allied forces at Gallipoli - that the campaign would succeed and the Dardanelles would be captured.

His superiors did not share his optimism and recalled him in October 1916, six months after the campaign began.

The dawn service that has become a tradition in New Zealand was held because the first Anzac troops landed at Anzac Cove at dawn.

Even before the first troops had landed on the narrow strip of beach, they realised what a monumental task they faced as they looked at the almost sheer cliffs they would have to conquer to get to the Turkish positions.

Men died before their boats had even reached the beaches but it took a few days for the human cost of the landings to reach New Zealand.

The first public recognition of what was to become etched in New Zealanders' minds was held on April 30, five days after the event.

The Government ordered a half-day holiday with flags to be flown at half mast.

The term Anzac was also protected from commercialism in August 1916 when a law was passed preventing it from being used for trade purposes.

Anzac Day first became a public holiday in 1921 and is now seen not only as a day to commemorate all New Zealand's war dead, but as a day rejecting the horrors of war and a day that marks the time when New Zealand began to establish its national identity. 

Anzac slang

arseapeek (upside down or arse over head)

banjo (trenching shovel)

Beachy Bill (Turkish artillery piece that regularly shelled Anzac Cove)

body-snatcher (member of a raiding part sent out to capture Turkish prisoners)

broomstick bomb (dangerous Turkish throwing bomb)

camel dung (Egyptian cigarettes)

chat (louse or to remove lice from clothing)

cricket ball (Turkish hand grenade)

digger (Anzac soldiers, derived from New Zealand tunnellers)

furphy (camp rumour, named after Joseph Furphy, an Australian engineer who built mobile water tanks used in WW1. Rumours spread as the tanks moved.)

Gallipoli gallop (diarrhoea)

Gypo (Egyptian or to be conned)

grungy (improvised bully beef meal with onions, biscuits, water and salt)

jacko (Turkish soldier)

jam tin (improvised bomb to match Turkish hand bombs)

red caps (British military police)

sap (trench)

short arm inspection (genital inspection for sexually transmitted diseases)

Turkey trot (diarrhoea)

wallah (person)

wazzah (dugout)

wazzir or wozzer (Cairo's red light area)

woodbine (English soldier named after their cigarettes).

- NZPA