"Marching up and down the square."
"Marching up and down the square."
Those of you familiar with Monty Python may recall the "Marching up and down the square" sketch. It's fairly typical Python. A group of soldiers when given the choice between marching up and down the square and doing almost anything else - opted for doing almost anything else: leaving the Sgt-Major to march by himself.
It turns out that the slang term for the square (or more correctly the parade ground) is "The Fizzer." I first heard the term "Fizzer" in the early 1980s from a bloke who was definitely ex-NZ Army and probably old enough to have served in WWII or at very least J Force.
So I asked: "What's a fizzer?"
He said: "It's a charge, a disciplinary charge in the Army, for misconduct."
Fizzer.
Cpl Jones used the term in Dad's Army. "You should all end up on the fizzer." Although I heard it as 'a' fizzer.
What Cpl Jones meant was that "The Fizzer" is the parade ground. The military place where crossing it diagonally was not done, and when crossing it by way of short cut - it was expected that you would march, properly - like a soldier.
When groups of soldiers needed to get their marching to a high standard they would march up and down the square until they absolutely fizzed. Fizz, circa 1930s and earlier, being a very good thing. Thus the square became The Fizzer, as in the place where practice made perfect. A place, where after sufficient time - your marching would have real fizz.
Parallel to being a place where the soldiery could become very very good at marching "The Fizzer" was also a place were defaulters were punished. So a defaulter would have had to spend off-duty time marching up and down the square as punishment. So the threat (as per Cpl Jones) was that if a solider continued being recalcitrant he would "end up on The Fizzer."
My guess is that The Fizzer (the place of punishment) became 'a' Fizzer (the disciplinary process). That's my guess. And I'm sticking with it.
In The Mean Season: a 5,150 ton short story of the sea I co-opted the term into the navy. I'm not sure if it's actually a navy term - but I liked it, so I used it. Not that I want to end up on The Fizzer or anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS5D9...
Those of you familiar with Monty Python may recall the "Marching up and down the square" sketch. It's fairly typical Python. A group of soldiers when given the choice between marching up and down the square and doing almost anything else - opted for doing almost anything else: leaving the Sgt-Major to march by himself.
It turns out that the slang term for the square (or more correctly the parade ground) is "The Fizzer." I first heard the term "Fizzer" in the early 1980s from a bloke who was definitely ex-NZ Army and probably old enough to have served in WWII or at very least J Force.
So I asked: "What's a fizzer?"
He said: "It's a charge, a disciplinary charge in the Army, for misconduct."
Fizzer.
Cpl Jones used the term in Dad's Army. "You should all end up on the fizzer." Although I heard it as 'a' fizzer.
What Cpl Jones meant was that "The Fizzer" is the parade ground. The military place where crossing it diagonally was not done, and when crossing it by way of short cut - it was expected that you would march, properly - like a soldier.
When groups of soldiers needed to get their marching to a high standard they would march up and down the square until they absolutely fizzed. Fizz, circa 1930s and earlier, being a very good thing. Thus the square became The Fizzer, as in the place where practice made perfect. A place, where after sufficient time - your marching would have real fizz.
Parallel to being a place where the soldiery could become very very good at marching "The Fizzer" was also a place were defaulters were punished. So a defaulter would have had to spend off-duty time marching up and down the square as punishment. So the threat (as per Cpl Jones) was that if a solider continued being recalcitrant he would "end up on The Fizzer."
My guess is that The Fizzer (the place of punishment) became 'a' Fizzer (the disciplinary process). That's my guess. And I'm sticking with it.
In The Mean Season: a 5,150 ton short story of the sea I co-opted the term into the navy. I'm not sure if it's actually a navy term - but I liked it, so I used it. Not that I want to end up on The Fizzer or anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS5D9...
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