" Or he would be denounced as a "sprucer" if he managed to
arrive late for his meal and yet, by a trick, to secure a front place in
the waiting queue at the canteen. A word in constant employment,
"spruce"! It was new to me when I became an orderly, and for a long time
I thought that it was peculiar to our unit, in the same manner that the
jargon of certain boys is peculiar to certain schools. But I concluded
later that it might have a remote and roundabout origin in the old army
slang, "a spruce hand" at "brag"--the latter being a variant of the game
of poker, and a spruce hand, apparently, one which, held by a bluffer,
contained cards of no real value.
Some day these etymological mysteries must be probed. Perhaps the German
professors, after the war, can usefully wreak themselves on this complex
and obscure research. Meanwhile the above notes are offered not as a
serious contribution to a subject so immense, but rather as a warning.
The infectiousness of slang is incredible; and this gigantic
inter-association of classes and clans has brought about a hitherto
unheard-of levelling-down of the common speech.
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