What does G.I. stand for?

jimtron

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jimtron
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OK, the Internet is giving me conflicting information on this. What does GI (the military, not medical term) stand for? Wikipedia says galvanized iron. Other sources say government issue. I don't have any reliable reference sources for this at the moment. I know that Wikipedia is isn't definitive, but my bet is with them--in my experience it's been a pretty reliable reference source.
 
According to Hugh Rawson in his book Devious Derivations, GI stands for galvanised iron. It's uncertain as to exactly when GI went from referring to the galvanised iron trash cans to the soldiers themselves, but by 1939, GI was being used to describe soldiers in West Point slang.
 
no one ever told me explicitly, but from context i always took it to mean "government issue" or "general issue" -- referring to gear as "GI" meant that you got it issued to you. referring to people, it seemed to intimate enlisted folk (especially lower enlisted, who i often hear referred to as "joes," as well).
 
Sir Robin Goodfellow said:
According to Hugh Rawson in his book Devious Derivations, GI stands for galvanised iron. It's uncertain as to exactly when GI went from referring to the galvanised iron trash cans to the soldiers themselves, but by 1939, GI was being used to describe soldiers in West Point slang.
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Just a thought--perhaps it had something to do with punishment detail--cleaning out garbage cans?
 
Gastro Intestinal? I know every time I get stuck at an Army base, my delicate Air Force constitution can't handle their chow, and I have a lot of Gastro Intestinal distress. ;)

Okay, horrid joke aside, you seem to have covered the evolution of the term.
 
I also thought it meant "General Infantryman".
I don't recall where I read this, but I certainly "knew" it before 1965, so probably TV or my father who was WW2 British Army and met plenty American troops.
 
I'd never heard either galvanized iron or General Infantryman in all the years and those since I've been associated with things military.
Gummint Issue is the -only- correct term!
 
According to Acronyms, Initialism & Abbreviations Dictionary it stands for Government Issue.

God, I love being a librarian.
 
MG1962 said:
Yes definately general infantry

Same with Jeep - it is a contraction of GP or general purpose
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Wrong on both counts. The Willys/Ford Jeep name was orignally a carton character called "Eugene the Jeep" and "G.I." is Government Issue as others have mentioned.
 
I've always heard it was "General Issue."

However:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_(military)
GI or G.I. is a term describing members of the U.S. armed forces or items of their equipment. It may be used as an adjective or as a noun. The term is often thought to be an initialism of "Government Issue", "General Issue", or "General Infantry" but actually refers to galvanized iron. The letters "G.I." that used to denote equipment such as metal trash cans made from galvanized iron in U.S. Army inventories and supply records. During World War I, U.S. soldiers sardonically referred to incoming German artillery shells as "GI cans"; it was assumed that "GI" stood for "Government Issue". The term was later applied to all military equipment, then to the soldiers themselves.
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This is interesting (to people who find these things interesting).
A decade or so ago, the general consensus was that it stood for government issue but no one could say why.

They've obviously been digging, and have found the earliest cites. The Wiki aricle has a link to Wordorigin.org that has a fuller explanation. Apparently the earliest citations anyone could find were for galvanized iron back in early WWI. But while they don't pinpoint it, they note that by 1918 that meaning had sidled over to the currently accepted government issue.

Is it possible that in the bureaucratic morass of papers coming during a war someone independently came up with the expression Government Issue? I'd say yes. But the timing seems to work in favor of it morphing over from galvanized iron.

Interesting, .... but not yet conclusive.
 
My father who served in WW2 told me when I was a kid, and the G.I. haircut was in style for kids, that it stood for "ground infantry". The phrase has always sounded a bit pleonastic but poking around on the net today, it seems to have been a term in use at one time.


What G.I. Stands For


GI is short for Government Issue.


However, these are all common interpretations or misinterpretations:
  • General Issue
  • General Infantry or Ground Infantry
  • General Inductee
  • Government Inductee
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I always thought it meant General Issue. I suspect the Wiki has it right.

Cool thread. It's always fun to see even simple things we think we know/understand explained, even when the explanation indicates we didn't know what we thought we knew :)
 
Cicero said:
Wrong on both counts. The Willys/Ford Jeep name was orignally a carton character called "Eugene the Jeep" and "G.I." is Government Issue as others have mentioned.
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From pages 11-13, Jeeps 1941-45, (2005 print), Osprey Publishing

The term "jeep" had been around for many years, used as casual slang in the Army for anything that was insignificant, awkward, or silly, and sometimes used in the form "jeepy" to mean foolish. It was also used by army mechanics during World War I to refer to any new vehicle. The term became more populair in September 1937 with the arrival of the cartoon character "Eugene the Jeep" in E.C. Segar's Popeye comic strip.
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The name jeep finally made the leap from the 1/2 ton truck to the new Willys 1/4 ton truck owing in large measure to Irving "Red" Hausmann, a Willys-Overland test driver. Hausmann used it during the trials at Holabird to distinguish the Willys vehicle from its Bantam and Ford competitors.
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A populair but mistaken idea is that the word jeep was a contraction for the term GP or General Purpose.
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What cemented the name jeep to the 1/4 ton truck was the power of advertising. Hausmann's use of jeep during the Holabird trials had caught on in the Willys plant in Toledo, and when Willys began to promote its role in the American war effort in magazine advertisements in 1942, it regularly reffered to their 1/4 ton truck as the jeep.
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According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, GI is an abbreviation for "government or general issue." The OED should be a reliable source, but I wonder--what would the definitive source be? Maybe there's no way to know for sure. I wonder what William Safire would say? Or Cecil Adams.
 
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