(Notwithstanding the fact that according to Wikipedia the Marines say “Drill Instructor”, and yes, that’s a thing with them – the only thing I could find in several pages of military slang terms from many sources is “greenie beanie,” meaning “green beret;” and so, because it’s the middle of the night, or should I say “zero-stupid-thirty,” I am going to go with that. Incidentally, I had never heard of a hinny or a jenny. Fraid I’m not even quite clear on the whole donkey/mule thing. I know what a zedonk is, though. )
I understand your confusion, because drill sergeants are scary & yell a lot too; however we’re talking about, not Marines, but sub-marines.
You see, beanies were the bad guys in Yellow Submarine.
If I may plead my own case of zero-stupid-thirty I should have been more precise in my use of Marine Corps terminology and/or ranking specifics. In movies when the DI is allowing the recruits to say anthing at all, they will usually address the officer in charge as Gunney which is short for Gunnery Sergeant although I’m unaware if DI’s are always only Gunnery Sergeants. Eastwood was Gunnery Sergeant Highway in Heartbreak Ridge (1986) and that’s what I’m basing my usage on.
So, gunney was my follow-up to bunny, but since we’ve moved on to Blue Meanies it’s my duty to inform you that that’s another slang term for nervous hysteria.
My Lord, how these sound-alike and look-alike expressions just go every whichaway! Here I try to get you to see screaming meemies and you go instead for follies which anybody knows is what you call young female horses!
Since this thread appears of major interest only to the two of us
(as exhibited by
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I’d like to see what we can dream up in the way of malapropisms that are at least partially regional in nature.
Using this page and its links as a guide we should be able to come up with some sort of game where instead of simple malaprops we use regional equivalents or variants instead.
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