Very, very, British.

[gridlore]

To celebrate Veteran's Day I'm reading The Record of a Regiment of the Line - Being a Regimental History of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment during the Boer War 1899-1902 by Colonel L M. Jacson (Free at Project Gutenberg). Since my Great-Grandfather fought with the Devonshires in South Africa, this period is of interest to me. I'm loving the book, which is written in a very straight forward style. But with the British flair for understatement. Take for example, this line about an early skirmish in the war:

On Sunday, October 15th, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who had arrived about two days previously, marched out of the Tin Camp Ladysmith to entrain for Dundee, which place it was reported the Transvaal Boers were threatening; and on the same day the news was confirmed that the armoured train at Mafeking had been twice attacked. It was said that our khaki uniform had completely nonplussed the Boers, and that they had expected to meet us coming on in red, as in the days gone by, and that they were consequently rather surprised and annoyed.

" Rather surprised and annoyed." I love it!

Comments

[claidheamhmor]

I'll bet the Boers were surprised and annoyed - they loved the scarlet British coats!

[patrik holmström (from livejournal.com)]

One of my favorite examples of british understatment is taken from the BBC documentary "In the wake of Sheffield".

... two of his bombs hit me and went off; destroying my Seacat system. Indead the [pause] I looked aft and the Seacat launcher, which is quite a heavy piece of kit, hade gone about a 100 feet up in the air and was wobbeling around up there, which was slighly bad news. - Captain Alan West, HMS Ardent

It can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eLyPEBH4GA&feature=related at about 9:20.

Patrik Holmström