re-rolling
n.— «Last week, Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor and Hillier pledged that front-line soldiers would be called upon to serve no more than one tour in Afghanistan. To do that, the army will call on members of the navy and air force in a process called re-rolling. But since their initial comments, there’s been confusion in military ranks and among the public about who will qualify and the jobs they will perform. Both men attempted to set the record straight Wednesday. “We’re not planning to take sailors and make them infantry,” said O’Connor. Many of the specialized support trades, such as signallers and mechanics, have roughly the same qualifications no matter what branch they call home.» —“Canadian sailors and aircrew to drive army trucks in Kandahar” by Canadian Press Canada.com Oct. 26, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...
A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...