Rooty

DESCRIPTION: "At times we get some rooty, To civvies known as bread... we gets it down somehow, And we never sends it back, Though it's covered up with whiskers What's rubbed off from the sack." Instead of eggs, they get shells from the enemy and hide in the dugout
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 2014 (Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar)
KEYWORDS: soldier food hardtimes war
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, p. 343, "Rooty" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "My Old Man's a Dustman" (tune, according to Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar)
NOTES [98 words]: I have been unable to find any other reference to this song, but "rooty" as a word for "bread" is attested. Brophy/Partridge-TommiesSongsAndSlang, p. 173, explains it as coming from Urdu "roti," and explains that it was originally used by troops in British India; it eventually was used by troops at home as well. It is perhaps worth mentioning that a couple of divisions from the Army of India were briefly moved to the Western Front, serving e.g. at the First Battle of Ypres -- though they had enough trouble with the conditions that they were sent to other regions of the conflict. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: PSoS343

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