Seesul´s lingual corner

[Freebird]

Your asking me, Roman? Hell, just because I am born and raised here doesn't mean I can speak this goofy language called English.

Well I know you guys learn American, do they teach English there too?

{Sorry couldn't resist... }

I have noticed, on the forum, that lots of guys from English speaking counties
have trouble with "there" and "their". Just remember "there" denotes a place.
"Their" denotes possession.

I guess the problem is that they're not paying attention to grammar.

I see a lot of misuse of your and you're, along with to and too. I'm sure I have been guilty of it myself.

English grammar is not taught as well as in days of yore.

 

[seesul]

what does ''pepper-upper" mean?
To give you an idea about a sentence " In May of '44, it was on to Iowa at the Sioux City Army Air Base for combat crew training. When we arrived, they welcomed us with a band.Guess they thought that we needed a pepper-upper since we're fixing to go over in a couple of months."

THX in advance!

 

[ccheese]

what does ''pepper-upper" mean?
To give you an idea about a sentence " In May of '44, it was on to Iowa at the Sioux City Army Air Base for combat crew training. When we arrived, they welcomed us with a band.Guess they thought that we needed a pepper-upper since we're fixing to go over in a couple of months."

THX in advance!

Could you have mis-understood the words ? Perhaps they said
"pick'er upper" ? A "pick'er upper" could be a good stiff drink.
[i.e something to lift your spirits]

Charles

 

[seesul]

Could you have mis-understood the words ? Perhaps they said
"pick'er upper" ? A "pick'er upper" could be a good stiff drink.
[i.e something to lift your spirits]

Charles

Hi Charles, probably not. It´s copied from original file writen by one American... I´ll show you more from this article...

My name is John Hiram Adair. I was born in a white frame house in Forreston, the youngest of five children, and the only son of Johnie and William Adair. We lived on a farm a few miles east of town on Bullard Hill, and were members of the Forreston Methodist Church.

During the summers I helped out Dad on the farm. I went to school there in Forreston until my junior year, when my family moved over to Avalon. My friends from school call me Johnny, but my family calls me "Johnsy".

After graduating from Avalon High School, I went to Texas A&M College, where I joined the Army Reserve in December of '42. After one year in college, I was called to serve in June of '43, and I reported for active duty in the Army Air Corps.

My initial training was at Sheppard Air Field in Wichita Falls, and after that there was more training in Florida and then in Kingman, Arizona at the Aerial Gunnery School. Like a lot of the other "country boys", I was trained as a gunner, because we were better shots than those city boys. We did a lot of shooting at moving targets to hone our air-to-air firing skills.

In May of '44, it was on to Iowa at the Sioux City Army Air Base for combat crew training. When we arrived, they welcomed us with a band. Guess they thought that we needed a pepper-upper since we're fixing to go over in a couple of months.

I've been assigned to heavy bombardment and will be flying on a B-17 fortress. I'm with a good bunch of fellows and like them all fine so far. In my crew, we have four from Pennsylvania, one from Virginia, one from Massachusetts, one from Georgia, one from Wyoming, and the navigator is not with us yet. I hope he is from Texas.

At first I thought that I'd be the right waist gunner, but later I found out that I would have to take the tail guns. Being the tail-gunner was pretty rough. Known by some as "Tail End Charlie", it was a difficult spot. It was a tight little space, with lots of vibration, noise, cold, flying for hours down on your knees, with your legs doubled under you, and looking out through my small plexiglas box window.

Before takeoff, all the gunners would gather in the radio room and then after we were airborne, we would make our way to our stations. As the tail-gunner, I had to crawl past the tail wheel, dragging my parachute behind me, and crawl on hands and knees into the tail. Once we made it up to altitude, I had to plug in my electric flight suit to keep from freezing. This was no place for someone with claustrophobia.

One Sunday evening as I was leaving the mess hall, I looked up just in time to see my good friend from home, James King, walking past. We went to the PX and had a long visit. I hadn't seen him in 14 months, and it sure does a lot of good to meet someone that you used to run around with.

This Iowa countryside is some beautiful land for farming. The land is real black and these farmers have a corn patch for every cotton patch that we have back home. They have the nicest homes and more big barns and outhouses than Carter has liver pills.

I was supposed to make Corporal on the 15th of June, but it didn't come through. My pilot messed up the paperwork. I sure could use the extra pay, it will be $28 a month more.

On the 20th of June, we went on a high altitude gunnery mission over Rapid City, South Dakota, and I got sick as a horse. Riding the tail is certainly no picnic. I would much rather be a waist gunner.

I wrote to my folks and my sisters at every opportunity and very much anticipated all their letters from home. We were due a furlough before we had to go overseas, and I really looked forward to the chance to visit home once more after all this time living in crowded barracks. My leave finally came at the last of July, but it flew by before I knew it.

The first week of August our group received our orders and headed out for Europe. It was a long journey with many stops along the way. Once I was locking the tail wheel and I inserted the crank too soon, and got a real blow on the chin. It bled a good bit, but an inch higher and it would have knocked out all my front teeth. Don't think that it will leave a scar though.

Along the way, we spent some time in the far Northeast. On August 9th we went swimming in one of the lakes up there and the water was really cold. We even did a little fishing and caught some small trout. I'll bet that there are a lot of lakes up there that have never even had a hook in them. It would have been swell if we could have stayed there a little longer.

By this time I had made Sergeant, and was drawing base pay, flying pay and a per diem for being away from my home base. I could take a lot of days like this at $10.30 a day, and I don't care how long I'm gone at this kind of money.

After several days of hard flying we finally arrived at the Amendola Airfield near Foggia, Italy. We were now part of the 2nd Bomb Squadron, 2nd Bomb Group of the 15th Army Air Force.

It was pretty good here, enough to get by on anyway. I live in a tent with six other boys on my crew. We can fix it up in time so it'll be pretty nice. The food is much better than I expected, in fact it's better than lots of places that I trained in the States.

One day I went swimming in the Adriatic Sea, and I am getting a rather nice tan here on the east coast of Italy. We visited Foggia one day and its just awful, all the filth as such I've never seen before. Those people don't have enough to eat either.

It was now the 19th of August and I haven't been sent on a raid yet, but it won't be long now from what I hear. We all looked forward to mail call more than anything else. Mail means a lot over here.

To my disappointment, my crew was split up as replacements for the other crews in the squadron. Oh well, I have no choice to make the best of the situation.

And then August 22nd came my first mission. I was flying tail-gunner aboard the "Tail End Charlie" on a mission to Odertal Oil Refinery in Germany. The pilot was Charles Beecham, and I didn't get to know most of the other guy's names... I had a real case of the butterflies.

It was an 8-hour mission. There were no fighters in sight, but there was lots of flak over the target. The other guys said that it was only moderate flak, but it sure seemed bad to me... We hit the target real good.

My 2nd mission came the very next morning aboard the "Lovely Lady" piloted by Lt. L. D. Campbell. The target that day was an industrial area at Vienna, Austria. This time there were German fighters making attacks through our formation. I'm not sure I hit anything though. At 400 mph, they were a lot harder to hit than the targets we shot at back in Arizona.

I had been told, and today I saw firsthand, that those German fighters really came after us tail-gunners. They knew that if they got the tail-gunner that our B-17s were just a sitting duck. I don't recall ever having the jitters so bad in my life...

 

[Erich]

Roman am thinking Charles may be right on the spelling but in this very case it might be how do I say it except with a surfing statement, "they tried to stoke us man". or trying to pump us up - get us more enthusiastic about being in the service.

make sense ?

 

[evangilder]

I haven't heard the term "pepper upper" either, but it is probably the same as picker upper in context. A way to boost the morale and spirits of the men.

 

[seesul]

Yep guys, think the sence "to lift the spirit up" is correct, that makes a sense.
Just wanted to ask if pepper-upper is common slang expression.
I know the author so I´ll ask him by e-mail.

thx again

 

[seesul]

Hmmm, just found this

pep•per-up•per


Pronunciation: (pep'ur-up'ur), [key]
—n. Informal.
1. something, as a food, beverage, or pill, that provides a quick but temporary period of energy and alertness.
2. something added to food to relieve blandness.
3. an experience that increases enthusiasm or zeal, as a pep talk. Also,pep'per up'per.

http://dictionary.infoplease.com/pepper-upper

 

[seesul]

another question- abbreviation "PX"?

" One Sunday evening as I was leaving the mess hall, I looked up just in time to see my good friend from home, James King, walking past. We went to the PX and had a long visit. I hadn't seen him in 14 months, and it sure does a lot of good to meet someone that you used to run around with. "

Sorry for teasing you but I´m working on translation of this 6 pages long article for our newspapers and the publisher wants to have it today (Sunday 1st). So that´s why I´m still up at 5:15 am here

 

[GrauGeist]

Wasn't "Pepper-upper" from a Dr. Pepper soft drink ad campaign back in the '70s?

Anyway, PX means "Post Exchange" and I'm not sure if that's a unique term used by U.S. military, or if other militaries use it as well.

 

[evangilder]

PX, or Post eXchange is where a member of the military can purchase about anything they need, from tooth paste to cameras and stereo gear. It is also known as Base eXchange, or BX for the Air Force.

 

[seesul]

many thx fellas!

 

[ppopsie]

Can I join Roman? I still love the sweet Blanik!

 

[seesul]

if you help me with my Czenglish...
sure, welcome!

Anyway, I´m not an expert on Blanik, but was it L-13? If so, a friend of mine, 85 years old now, has installed an engine on it some years ago...

 

[ppopsie]

This was in 1979, I think. The L-13 was one of the high performance gliders of the time, having a very finely finished metal airframe with flush rivets all over. It was also my start of DIY English learning, with reading its maintenance manual and the parts manual as well as the flight handbook all in English.

 

[seesul]

Are you from Japan or do you just live there?

 

[ppopsie]

Am Japanese, was born in Tokyo.

My "scratchbuilding" of English has been just for my hobby; flying, modeling and cooking. But it is also useful for many other things and that is not bad.

 

[seesul]

O.K., thank you!

 

[seesul]

And then August 22nd came my first mission. I was flying tail-gunner aboard the "Tail End Charlie" on a mission to Odertal Oil Refinery in Germany. The pilot was Charles Beecham, and I didn't get to know most of the other guy's names... I had a real case of the butterflies.

What does the last sentence mean?

 

[evangilder]

Nervous. It comes from a saying that one has butterflies in the stomach. It's a reference to how your stomach feels when you get nervous or apprehensive. Also scared.