Topical Guide 1007
Mark Dorset
Words: Word and Phrase Origins: Camouflage
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 42:
Albertine asked, “Do you know where the word camouflage comes from, my sweet?”
I said, “No, ma petite. I confess that I do not, but I imagine that you are going to tell me that it comes from the name of one of your countrymen, a Capitaine Camouffe who dressed in leafy green and woodsy brown so that he could hide in the trees and bushes when Napoleon was looking for volunteers to lead the Russian campaign.” […]
[She said,] “it is a strange word, I think, probably derived from camouflet, which is an underground explosion — […] But wait, there’s more. The use of camouflet for an underground explosion not visible on the surface is figurative. It literally means a puff of smoke intentionally blown in someone’s face as a practical joke.”
The following is not to be missed.
Roy R. Behrens, “an excellent account of the word origin of camouflage,” on “Camoupedia”:
[Philip Hale] was a musician and prominent newspaper critic […]. Beginning in 1903, he was affiliated with The Boston Herald, for which he wrote a column called As the World Wags. In one of his columns, which was published on January 24, 1918, he offered what is—undoubtedly—the most detailed and authoritative account of the origin of the French word camouflage, which had become widely adopted as an English term during World War I.
Behrens quotes Hale’s entire column, and I urge you to read it. Here is a brief passage relevant to Albertine’s explanation:
Let us look at the French slang dictionarles. Le Roux, edition of 1752: “Camouflet. A blow on the face.” Scarron is quoted. Then: “It is also a trick played on a person asleep; here is the explanation. One takes a half sheet of paper, rolls it in the form of a cone, and lights one end, puts the lighted end in the mouth, and blows smoke through the other end into the nose of a sleeper. This makes him wake up at once. In this manner one breaks a person of the habit of sleeping at any moment. The word is also figuratively employed, and in this case means affront, mortification.”
Delvau’s “Dictionnaire de la Langue Verte,” 1889. We find “Camouflement: disguise because the ‘camoufle’ of instruction and education deceives one.” “Camoufler, to instruct oneself, to serve oneself with the camoufle of intellectual and moral light.” It should be remarked that in thieves’ slang “camoufle” means candle. Delvau also gives “camouflerise,” reflective verb, to disguise oneself. “Camouflage” is not given.
There’s much more. The page more than repays a visit.
See also:
Words TG 11; Watchwords, Mottoes, Words of Wisdom, Words to Live by, Words to the Wise TG 370; Meaning TG 510; Word Choice: Accuracy, Le Mot Juste TG 510; Misnomers TG 513, Word and Phrase Origins TG 754, TG 833
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