flak

[misterdoe]

I first came across this word while reading Captain Newman, MD some years ago, as part of the construction "flak juice" (sodium pentothal), used in the treatment of shellshocked soldiers -- I say shellshocked because this was used immediately after whatever incident triggered the shock (and the term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was unknown at the time in which the novel was set).
I know what it means but I've always wondered about it's history...

[Slava]

I wonder if it has any use in its original sense anymore. Do we use flak? It comes from the German for anti-aircraft gun.

To catch flak, to give someone flak; these are the ways I see it used now.

On the ground, I gather it would be shrapnel, not flak.

[Perry]

flak
1938, from Ger. Flak, acronym for Fliegerabwehrkanone "airplane defense cannon." Sense of "anti-aircraft fire" is 1940; metaphoric sense of "criticism" is c.1963 in Amer.Eng.

10 points for Slava.

[skinem]

Yeah, we still use flak. So do other countries. Remember all the pretty lights over Baghdad?

[Slava]

I thought the pretty lights were tracers and phosphorescent stuff we dropped. Were they flak from Iraq?

Sorry. Hate to rhyme, but I do it every time.

Gee. I'm a poet and didn't even know it.

[Stargzer]

Do we use flak? ...


I thought the pretty lights were tracers and phosphorescent stuff we dropped. Were they flak from Iraq? ...

Yes; all the stuff coming up from the ground was the Iraqis' way of telling us "FLAK YOU!" The stuff we rained down was our way of saying "FLAK OFF!"

[Slava]

Ah, and here I thought we'd taken out all the Ak-Ak batteries before we went in. As in way before we went in, like in the last war. Silly me, thinking we'd do something sensible. Let's face it, we went to war, didn't we? How sensible was that?

Was ak-ak an American or British term, or both? Anyone know the story?

[skinem]

Tracers can be bullets, artillery shells, etc. (AA is usually simply artillery shells shot upward and usually set to explode at specific altitudes or within proximity of a target). What makes them tracers are a chemical compound the projectile is coated with. On some battlefields you could often tell the ammunition's country of origin by the color of their tracers--US and allies was usually red/orange, the old Soviet bloc stuff was usually green. You can load ammunition so that there is usually a specific ratio of tracer rounds to non-tracer rounds. If I remember right, the typical American ratio was 10 untreated rounds to 1 tracer round. When you see battlefield footage, that can sometimes give you some idea of the volume of fire. Keep in mind not everyone on the battlefield is using tracer rounds--what can be used to trace fire to a target to help adjust fire, can also be traced back to the origin of fire.

We'd taken a lot of the AA out the previous war, but funny about people...they just wouldn't leave it alone and they went and built and bought more...besides, a lot of it is portable and it's not as easy to hit that stuff as the media would make you think.

Every source I found says that "ack-ack" was of British origin--one source dates it 1926 and each source said it was British signalmen telephone code.

[LukeJavan8]

Ah, and here I thought we'd taken out all the Ak-Ak batteries before we went in. As in way before we went in, like in the last war. Silly me, thinking we'd do something sensible. Let's face it, we went to war, didn't we? How sensible was that?

Was ak-ak an American or British term, or both? Anyone know the story?

It seems to be the only way folks seem to be able to
settle differences, more's the pity.