First world war soldiers would fight side by side but often not share a language so they invented their own
In 1917, as America was drawn into the first world war, several glossaries of trench language were published by recruiting offices and newspapers.
"Men from the front declare that a knowledge of this trench jargon is quite essential," reported the New York Literary Digest of the Recruits' Primer of Trench Idiom in 1917. "Without it the language would be unintelligible."
Continue reading...