Comment on What's the origin of the many phrases that include a person's name?

creamfresh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Wait, so somebody called Jack is basically the equivalent of “dude”? Interesting. So a lumberjack is just a person who deals with lumber, that makes a lot of sense!

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  • DagwoodIII@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yes. But a lumberjack isn’t a merchant, he’s the fellow who goes out and actually cuts down the trees.

    ‘Joe’ used to be a common term for coffee in the US, as in ‘pour me a cup of joe.’ ‘G.I. Joe’ comes from ‘government issue.’ Before WW1 some soldiers provided their own boots, saddles, rifles, etc. When the Army decided to standardize, everything from uniforms and weapons to bedding was ‘G.I.’

    ‘Jane’ was any woman.

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    • impairedimperator@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Huh. Never actually looked into it, but I always assumed GI meant general infantry.

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      • DagwoodIII@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I.

        I was amazed to learn about the ‘galvanized iron.’

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    • sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      lumberjack isn’t a merchant

      Oop yeah I might have worded wrong. Yes, a lumberjack is a person who cuts down trees (my brain was thinking “dealing with” as in getting rid of, cutting something down, and of course lumber is the wood not the tree!)

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      • DagwoodIII@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Don’t worry.

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