Griceian Boot Camp

From Quinion's today World Wide Words:

Peter Needham asks:

"Do you have any clues as to where the odd American term "boot
camp" comes from? The meaning seems to have spread to correctional
"short sharp shock" facilities, but I'd imagine it is from the
military originally. Is it because new recruits wear boots?"

"They wear a lot of other stuff as well."

--- and thus, it is a breach of Grice's cooperative principle -- quantity category, be as informative as is required --.

"It seems an odd term."


----

Quinion answers:

"It's definitely a services term. Dictionaries often suggest,
following the current entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, that
it dates from the Second World War period, but it's easy to find
examples dating back to the First World War. The earliest I know
about is one dated 1916 that's cited by Jonathan Lighter in the
Historical Dictionary of American Slang. This is a slightly later
reference."

The fellows are kind of rusty on this wash the clothes
stuff because they haven't done much of it since they
came out of the boot camp, which is another name for a
training station.
[Galveston Daily News, 16 May 1918.]

"This is in a column headed "Marine Corps Musings". It and other
examples confirm Professor Lighter's finding that it was at first a
term of the US Navy and the US Marine Corps (it continued to be
used solely in those services until after the Second World War,
I've been told). It derives from a slightly older slang term "boot"
for a recruit in basic training or an inexperienced enlisted man,
on record from 1911."

"Why this should have appeared is uncertain. While it's true that
new recruits were issued boots at the start of basic training and
seemed to spend much of the rest of their time breaking them in, I
agree with you that this seems a slim basis for the invention."

---- notably vis a vis the flout of Grice, 'be as informative as is required'. Why not sock camp, shirt camp, trouer camp, cap camp, or gun camp, even?

"There is a persistent legend that it appeared during the Spanish-
American War of 1898, or at least around that period. Two versions
are told. One has it that sailors' leggings were known as boots and
that the term was transferred to recruits. Another version turned
up nearly half a century ago in the Words, Wit and Wisdom column
written by William Morris; he quoted a letter that he had received
from C E Reynolds, a retired Navy radio chief."

"When I entered the Navy in 1911," he writes, "an old-
timer called me a 'rubber-boot sailor.' When I asked for
an explanation, he told me that prior to about 1890 all
the men prided themselves on getting out on deck and
scrubbing down barefooted in the coldest weather. Then
there was an influx of kids from the midwest. They didn't
intend to act foolish, so they went ashore and bought
boots to wear when it was cold. The older hands sneered
and called them 'rubber boot sailors.' By the time I came
on the scene, they had shortened the nickname for
recruits to 'rubber boots.' That gradually was shortened
and by World War I we just said 'boots.'"
[Reno Evening Gazette, 16 May 1962.]

"I've not been able to find a contemporary example of "rubber-boot
sailor" but Mr Reynolds's recollection is first-hand, is so tightly
dated, and fits so well with other early examples of "boot" for
naval recruits, that we must take his suggested origin seriously.
Certainly, as matters stand, it's the best we can hope for."