From: Ben Crick (ben.crick@argonet.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 23 1998 - 20:48:44 EST
On Mon 23 Mar 98 (09:42:08), dalmatia@eburg.com wrote:
>ÊWhen I was a pup in 'this man's army', some time just before the end
>Êof the ice age, our skivvies was just our underware ~ boxer shorts ~
>Êand not a thread more, 'cept'n maybe our 'T's.
This doesn't have the remotest Greek connotation; but FWIW when I was in
the British Army we referred to our "drawers, cellular, pairs, one" as our
"shreddies". Skivvies? No; they were the waitresses in the NAAFI canteen
(what the US Army called the "P.X."). Ah! a Greek connection! What the
(uneducated) US Army top brass called the "P.X." was in fact the "Chi Rho",
the bigram abbreviation for CRISTOS (which they put back to front).
The British NAAFI, BTW, (recently abolished) was the "Navy, Army and Air
Force Institutes". They were the catering contractors who supplied the forces
in barracks with their bulk catering requirements, and also provided a
canteen service and clubroom for the junior ranks. Most of the married
families did their shopping in the NAAFI supermarkets in every garrison town.
-- Revd Ben Crick, BA CF <ben.crick@argonet.co.uk> 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm
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