![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Or dient et content et fabloient
Aug. 23rd, 2012 03:58 pmI was just skimming past Stephen Moss's article about life on a nuclear submarine (though actually it is worth reading, if only for the bits about the badger) when a column listing items of submarine slang snagged my attention.
"dit," it began, "story, tale, film" (this appears in the text as to spin a dit, to tell a story). It's the same in Old French - not the films, obviously, but a 'dit' is a narrative poem, one which tells a story (from the verb 'dire', to speak, presumably because there poems were spoken not sung). But can they be related?
Chambers - for dead-tree dictionaries are also available - goes for a wander round dite / indite, to disctate and hence compose, and also the Spenserian formulation of dit for a song, presumed to be by analogy with ditty. All of which is apt, but I suspect misleading.
On the other hand, a number of listings of naval slang, this one among them, give: "Dit - (RN) Short written note.". I can't find any suggested origin for this, though a list of Australian English military slang offers a further development: "Dit - A DVD; i.e., 'What's the Dit?'."
Since I have Chambers open in front of me, I offer with no evidence at all the possibility that the sense observed by Stephen Moss, making the most of a story, spinning out a yarn, may be the opposite of that original usage, the redaction of the shortest possible note, the 'dit' of the Morse Code.
ETA: it's only hours after writing this that it occurs to me it would be helpful to know how the word is pronounced!
"dit," it began, "story, tale, film" (this appears in the text as to spin a dit, to tell a story). It's the same in Old French - not the films, obviously, but a 'dit' is a narrative poem, one which tells a story (from the verb 'dire', to speak, presumably because there poems were spoken not sung). But can they be related?
Chambers - for dead-tree dictionaries are also available - goes for a wander round dite / indite, to disctate and hence compose, and also the Spenserian formulation of dit for a song, presumed to be by analogy with ditty. All of which is apt, but I suspect misleading.
On the other hand, a number of listings of naval slang, this one among them, give: "Dit - (RN) Short written note.". I can't find any suggested origin for this, though a list of Australian English military slang offers a further development: "Dit - A DVD; i.e., 'What's the Dit?'."
Since I have Chambers open in front of me, I offer with no evidence at all the possibility that the sense observed by Stephen Moss, making the most of a story, spinning out a yarn, may be the opposite of that original usage, the redaction of the shortest possible note, the 'dit' of the Morse Code.
ETA: it's only hours after writing this that it occurs to me it would be helpful to know how the word is pronounced!
