Where did "Jeesh" come from?
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- Launchie
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Where did "Jeesh" come from?
I absolutely love these books, but where did the random slang come from in the Shadow series? We never saw that in Ender's Game or Shadow, but in the later Shadow books, "jeesh" is there along with words like "kuso"(I like that one, though), "oomay", "eemo" and others.
So I guess my question is, why did Orson Scott Card feel the need to add in this slang out of nowhere?
So I guess my question is, why did Orson Scott Card feel the need to add in this slang out of nowhere?
"Real respect takes longer than official respect."-Valentine
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- Launchie
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Haha, we had a three page topic on this subject before the forumes changed ofcourse.
I think it was just OSC's way of making it seem more realistic. In my school now we have are own slang and I tend to take it home with me so I would assume a group of highly intelligent kids who lived in school for years would make there own way of speaking and bring it home aswell.
Why didnt we see any of it in the first books? Well I like to rule that on Ender and Bean both being 'to good' for slang while at battle school. Though in Ender's Shadow Bean has pointed out there was a slang and used it in order to 'be cool':P
This answer your question? Or make you more confused? Haha sorry.
By the way... I like Kuso too, I use Kuso all the time but my friends havent read the Ender books so I look like a crazy man.
I think it was just OSC's way of making it seem more realistic. In my school now we have are own slang and I tend to take it home with me so I would assume a group of highly intelligent kids who lived in school for years would make there own way of speaking and bring it home aswell.
Why didnt we see any of it in the first books? Well I like to rule that on Ender and Bean both being 'to good' for slang while at battle school. Though in Ender's Shadow Bean has pointed out there was a slang and used it in order to 'be cool':P
This answer your question? Or make you more confused? Haha sorry.
By the way... I like Kuso too, I use Kuso all the time but my friends havent read the Ender books so I look like a crazy man.
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- Launchie
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Eh...I'll figure it out.
I play Animal Crossing, and a few of my animals call me by slang names. One uses oomay, and another uses Falante(I know, not slang, but Portuguese). I think another calls me a careerist. (Ten points if you remember the scene.)
I play Animal Crossing, and a few of my animals call me by slang names. One uses oomay, and another uses Falante(I know, not slang, but Portuguese). I think another calls me a careerist. (Ten points if you remember the scene.)
"Real respect takes longer than official respect."-Valentine
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- wigginboy
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It mentions in ES that much of the slang was Portuguese, but as I recall, in the subsequent books, words were revealed to be from a myriad of nations, just as the children were. If there are young children from across the world gathered in a small space and made to interact with eachother, there is bound to be mingling of languages. Kids are sponges for language and everything new and cool sounding becomes part of the speech. I remember in school when tthe word 'awesome' was so cool. Lame, I know, but it was anew word and we loved it. Even today, kids speak internet lingo like its their first language. I cant count how many people I hear say things like 'OMG' or 'LOL' or the biggest one 'BRB', in public. As well, specialized groups, like cliques at school (clique being used from a sociological standpoint described as a small exclusive group of close friends with similar interests) or service clubs like Cadets in canada and Scouts in the states have their own language. When I was on an Air Cadet course a few years ago, there were six week course cadets and two week course cadets. So we on the six week course called the two weeks tweekies. That or CLITS, because they were the Cold Lake Intro to Survival. Wherever you have people speaking, there is going to be specialization of speech. Battle school would be no different. As for it not being in the first books, well, Ender's Game was written in 1985 and OSC probably didnt realize he would be writing ES because it didnt happen for another fifteen years afterward. As well, there was no need for BS slang in the next three books, even if Ender did use it because he wanted to leave BS behind anyway, and it was (for him) thirty years into the furure. In the Shadow series, all the people use the slang because to them, it has only been a few years since the war, and they are still used to it. I have been out of cadets for almost a year now, and I still call people in band 'bandylanders.' Language is something you dont easily give up once its there.
Was it Ender's Game where they said it was Portugese, but after so many years of mixing the kids in battle school, it changed slightly? I don't remember, but one of the books, could swear Ender's Game, mentioned it.
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Slang in Isolated Groups
Jesh is an Arabic term for Soldier. Jeesh refers to multiple soldiers, or an Army. The battle school culture is a mixture of students from all over the planet. Many of their host nations retain their language. From other related stories, we know that battle school is several generations old. So at one time, a large number of the students may have been Arabic, or Japanese, or Portuguese. So it would only be natural for their slang to creep in.
Being of Italian decent I use a lot of "dirty words" from my ancestrial homeland. My friends use them as a result of hearing me say them. Almost none of them are Italian.
Likewise, growing up in California I've used Spanish slang and swear words my entire life. My hispanic friends found it amusing to see a little kid swear in their language, and since most adults in my life didn't speak Spanish I could swear and not get spanked. This made learning a foreign slang all that more appealing. Of course, my generation knows which words are dirty so our kids are out of luck.
Not all the terms have to be "dirty" for the group to pick them up, however. Nor do they need to be real words at all. Some could be entirely made up, and have no coloration to other languages. The military does this a lot. Many of these terms continue to be used, even when the back story behind them is long sense lost. Some are words that have entirely different meanings when used in a different context. They are understood only by the context in which they used.
Having served in the military, I can tell you they cling to slang that makes no sense to outsiders. Some of my favorite from my time in the military were...
TERM / TRANSLATION
Whisky Tango Foxtrot? – What the “BLANK� (My favorite).
Hero – Idiot
Sunshine – (Same as above).
Slick – (Same as above).
Make a Hole – Move out of the way.
Pull Chalks – Hurry up, we need to leave right away.
Roger That – I agree with you, or I understand and will comply.
Back in the Nam – Used to let people know you’re about to tell a tall tale.
Stand Easy! – Shut Up!
Tango – Bad guy, or when partying a cute girl.
The enemy often gets a disparaging nick name. Many people consider them to be curse words. Notice I am not listing the name American GI’s gave to the Vietnamese. This is because that term is actually considered a swear word. Same with term given to the Japanese.
TERM/ TRANSLATION
Jerry – Germans
Skinny – Somalis (very rude since it refers to the fact that they are starving).
Hajji – Iraqis
Many terms have made it into common slang amongst those who never served in military. Most of which are ways of swearing without actually swearing. Example …
FUBAR –
Being of Italian decent I use a lot of "dirty words" from my ancestrial homeland. My friends use them as a result of hearing me say them. Almost none of them are Italian.
Likewise, growing up in California I've used Spanish slang and swear words my entire life. My hispanic friends found it amusing to see a little kid swear in their language, and since most adults in my life didn't speak Spanish I could swear and not get spanked. This made learning a foreign slang all that more appealing. Of course, my generation knows which words are dirty so our kids are out of luck.
Not all the terms have to be "dirty" for the group to pick them up, however. Nor do they need to be real words at all. Some could be entirely made up, and have no coloration to other languages. The military does this a lot. Many of these terms continue to be used, even when the back story behind them is long sense lost. Some are words that have entirely different meanings when used in a different context. They are understood only by the context in which they used.
Having served in the military, I can tell you they cling to slang that makes no sense to outsiders. Some of my favorite from my time in the military were...
TERM / TRANSLATION
Whisky Tango Foxtrot? – What the “BLANK� (My favorite).
Hero – Idiot
Sunshine – (Same as above).
Slick – (Same as above).
Make a Hole – Move out of the way.
Pull Chalks – Hurry up, we need to leave right away.
Roger That – I agree with you, or I understand and will comply.
Back in the Nam – Used to let people know you’re about to tell a tall tale.
Stand Easy! – Shut Up!
Tango – Bad guy, or when partying a cute girl.
The enemy often gets a disparaging nick name. Many people consider them to be curse words. Notice I am not listing the name American GI’s gave to the Vietnamese. This is because that term is actually considered a swear word. Same with term given to the Japanese.
TERM/ TRANSLATION
Jerry – Germans
Skinny – Somalis (very rude since it refers to the fact that they are starving).
Hajji – Iraqis
Many terms have made it into common slang amongst those who never served in military. Most of which are ways of swearing without actually swearing. Example …
FUBAR –
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- Launchie
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When I read it I was never so much concerned with where the word came from and all as much as "when did THAT start?" It seemed like all of a sudden Ender's closest friends from Battle School were defining their allegiance to him and that one binding fact with a word that Ender himself never used. Maybe he would've liked to have known about the cool word for his team.
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Re: "jeesh"
No, it's not. Google it and the things that come up are EG related.This term shows up in Empire as well...is it a real Military term?
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It needs to be about 20% cooler.
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It needs to be about 20% cooler.
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- Launchie
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Not totally out of nowhere, it seems.
Actually, not all of the slang was "out of nowhere." Most of it, surprisingly, came from japanese words. Having just realized this myself, last night, incidently, I happend across this.
http://www.geocities.com/enderjeesh/slang.html
Hope it helps.
http://www.geocities.com/enderjeesh/slang.html
Hope it helps.
I don't think it's so important where it came from but why it was in there. I also don't think OSC included it to make the story more "realistic". The slang used only by those in battle school, or more importantly Ender's friends, emphasizes how incredibly different these children are from those raised on Earth. And I'm not just talking about their unusually high intelligence, but their experiences together which shape who they become.
one of the best things pweb used to have on the main site was a complete dictionary of enderverse slang, as provided by OSC. quite a bit of it never made it into Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow, though a lot of the unused slang was used in OSC's circa 2002 screenplay drafts.
http://web.archive.org/web/200009010713 ... chool.html
ETA: the slang was also used in Advent Rising.
http://web.archive.org/web/200009010713 ... chool.html
ETA: the slang was also used in Advent Rising.
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- shadow_8818
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Arabic!
The word "jeesh" is Arabic for "army," I believe.
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Re: Where did "Jeesh" come from?
The word "Jeesh" is the Arabic translation of the English word Army. Speculation of course, but it may have come from Ender's relationship with Alai who is Muslim. This word is also used quite frequently in OSC's Empire book. If you havent read it, read it. This is the book that turned me onto Military Science Fiction.I absolutely love these books, but where did the random slang come from in the Shadow series? We never saw that in Ender's Game or Shadow, but in the later Shadow books, "jeesh" is there along with words like "kuso"(I like that one, though), "oomay", "eemo" and others.
So I guess my question is, why did Orson Scott Card feel the need to add in this slang out of nowhere?
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Am I the only one who noticed this? By the way, not to be rude or anything, but Bean is an African Greek boy. His mother's mother was an Ibo diplomat i believe. Seriously, not trying to be rude.Some of the slang I believe is Dutch. If I remember that's where Bean came from. The "oomay" and such seem Dutch to me anyway. *shrugs*
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- Jebus
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That was seriously rude, Jeesh_girl15. Who do you think you are, correcting someone like that? And as if that wasn't bad enough, you got it wrong too. You owe L_o_P an apology.Am I the only one who noticed this? By the way, not to be rude or anything, but Bean is an African Greek boy. His mother's mother was an Ibo diplomat i believe. Seriously, not trying to be rude.Some of the slang I believe is Dutch. If I remember that's where Bean came from. The "oomay" and such seem Dutch to me anyway. *shrugs*
- Jeesh_girl15
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Great thread -- thanks for the info & links posted about the meanings of the various slang words!
One thing I can contribute in return -- For those who were asking about why OSC had the Battle School kids using slang, I recommend to you his story "The Originist" in his short story collection _Flux_ (paperback) or _Maps_In_A_Mirror_ (hardback containing the contents of _Flux_ as well as additional work). Though it's not an Ender / Battle School story, it makes points about the use of language that suggest answers for Battle School as well. (And is just a really good story in its own right!)
One thing I can contribute in return -- For those who were asking about why OSC had the Battle School kids using slang, I recommend to you his story "The Originist" in his short story collection _Flux_ (paperback) or _Maps_In_A_Mirror_ (hardback containing the contents of _Flux_ as well as additional work). Though it's not an Ender / Battle School story, it makes points about the use of language that suggest answers for Battle School as well. (And is just a really good story in its own right!)
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- Launchie
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I see alot of people seem to agree that "jeesh" is derived from arabic. From what I learned from comedian Yakov Smirnov, it's a take on the russian word "geez" which is the US equivalent of an element or ecelon. If you don't know what those are, it's just like saying army, but refers to smaller group, similar to a battalion. So scale it down. Army begets regiment begets platoon and so forth. A jeesh would be when you see a smaller force lined up at attention standing in their respective ecelons. It wouldn't be the entire 3rd Armor Division, but rather, each individual groups that form the division. The basic building block if you will. Not a soldier, but not an army. The bottom of the pyramid would be the jeesh.
EG
Ah but they do mention it in EG, even though it may be something brief that is easily overlooked.
First visit to the Games Room ring any bells?
Ender uses the slang then.
Another reason why it probably is in Shadow but not in the Ender Saga is that Ender never really had any friends - Graff made sure he was always in some form of isolation. So why would he use it? He wasn't really part of the whole battle school. He was Ender Wiggin - above them in their eyes.
I was really quite surprised in Hegemon when all this slang appeared.
It really needed to introduced earlier so that it could be understood.
Half the time I couldn't understand what was being said.
I mean I got Jeesh, because they explained.
First visit to the Games Room ring any bells?
Ender uses the slang then.
Another reason why it probably is in Shadow but not in the Ender Saga is that Ender never really had any friends - Graff made sure he was always in some form of isolation. So why would he use it? He wasn't really part of the whole battle school. He was Ender Wiggin - above them in their eyes.
I was really quite surprised in Hegemon when all this slang appeared.
It really needed to introduced earlier so that it could be understood.
Half the time I couldn't understand what was being said.
I mean I got Jeesh, because they explained.
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