Table of Equivalents
In his seminal work, The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell exaplains:
The language is that which two generations of readers had been accustomed to associate with the quiet action of personal control and Christian self-abnegation ("sacrifice"), as well as With more violent actions of aggression and defense. The tutors in this special diction had been the boys' books of George Alfred Henty; the male-romances of Rider, Haggard; the poems of Robert Bridges; and especially the Arthurian poems of Tennyson and the pseudo-medieval romances of William Morris. We can set out this "raised," essentially feudal language in a table of equivalents:
- A friend is a
- comrade
- Friendship is
- comradeship, or fellowship
- A horse is a
- steed, or charger
- The enemy is
- the foe, or the host
- Danger is
- peril
- To conquer is to
- vanquish
- To attack is to
- assail
- To be earnestly brave is to be
- gallant
- To be chearfully brave is to be
- plucky
- To be stodily brave is to be
- staunch
- Bravery considered after the fact is
- valor
- The dead on the battlefield are
- the fallen
- To be nobly enthusiastic is to be
- ardent
- To be unpretentiuosly enthusiastic is to be
- keen
- The front is
- the field
- Obedient soliders are
- the brave
- Warfare is
- strife
- Actions are
- deeds
- To die is to
- perish
- To show cowardice is to
- swerve
- The draft-notice is
- the summons
- To enlist is to
- join the colors
- Cowardice results in
- dishonor
- Not to complain is to be
- manly
- To move quickly is to be
- swift
- Nothing is
- naught
- Nothing but is
- naught, save
- To win is to
- conquer
- One’s chest is one’s
- breast
- Sleep is
- slumber
- The objective of an attack is
- the goal
- A soldier is a
- warrior
- One’s death is one’s
- fate
- The sky is
- the heavens
- Things that glow or shine are
- radiant
- The army as a whole is
- the legion
- What is contemptible is
- base
- The legs and arms of young men are
- limbs
- Dead bodies constitute
- ashes, or dust
- The blood of young men is
- "the red/Sweet wine of youth" -R. Brooke
This system of "high" diction was not the least of the ultimate casualties of the war. But its staying power astonishing. As late as 1918 it was still posssible for some men who had actually fought to sustain the old rhetoric.
(Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 21-23)
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