Recruiting sergeant

Recruiting sergeant

A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The playwright George Farquhar served as an infantry officer, and the characters in his play "The Recruiting Officer" are drawn from life.

The unscrupulous methods used by some to trick the innocent have been the subject of several traditional songs composed by their victims as a warning to others, a popular example being the Irish traditional song "Arthur McBride".

A recruit would be given the Kings shilling as a mark of the contract made.

The term has passed into the English language to mean any set of circumstances which recruits or fails to recruit volunteers to the army. See Daily Telegraph headline [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/11/wirq111.xml "Iraq deaths make poor recruiting sergeant for the Pentagon"]

References

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/soldiers/soldier_trade_in_world_03.shtml Drumming up business] The Soldier's Trade in a Changing World By Professor Richard Holmes. bbc.co.uk - Accessed February 2007
* [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/recruiting-sergeant Definition at Free Dictionary]
* [http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/recruit.htm Irish song lyrics]
* [http://www.ilyric.net/Lyrics/g/Great-Big-Sea/Recruiting-Sergeant.html Newfoundland song lyrics]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • recruiting-sergeant — noun a sergeant deputized to enlist recruits • Hypernyms: ↑sergeant, ↑recruiter …   Useful english dictionary

  • sergeant — noun 1 in the army/air force ADJECTIVE ▪ army ▪ drill ▪ He had a voice like a drill sergeant. ▪ supply (in the US) ▪ staff …   Collocations dictionary

  • Sergeant — For other uses, see Sergeant (disambiguation). Common anglophone military ranks Navies Armies Air forces Officers Admiral of the fleet Marshal / fi …   Wikipedia

  • sergeant — n. 1) a buck; color; drill; first, top; flight (BE); gunnery; master; platoon; recruiting; staff; technical sergeant 2) a sergeant major * * * [ sɑːdʒ(ə)nt] color drill first gunnery master platoon …   Combinatory dictionary

  • recruiting — noun Recruiting is used before these nouns: ↑officer, ↑pool, ↑sergeant …   Collocations dictionary

  • The Recruiting Serjeant — is a burletta [ Bickerstaffe, Isaac in [http://books.google.com/books?id=FS0HAAAAQAAJ pg=PT51 lpg=PT51 dq=%22The+Recruiting+Serjeant%22+burletta source=web ots=BQJQMUdcDq sig=PM l2NXNDLZA6guDUunQhZV hUI hl=en sa=X oi=book result resnum=1… …   Wikipedia

  • Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting — This article is a subset article under Human Intelligence. For a complete hierarchical list of articles, see the intelligence cycle management hierarchy. Concepts here are also associated with counterintelligence. This article deals with the… …   Wikipedia

  • The Recruiting Officer — is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are… …   Wikipedia

  • Bleicher, Sergeant Hugo ‘Colonel Henri’ — 1899–    Bleicher was a German counter intelligence agent who disrupted many Allied underground circuits in France. He was a businessman whose knowledge of languages brought him to the attention of the German authorities who were recruiting… …   Who’s Who in World War Two

  • Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets — Infobox University name= Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets native name= image size = motto= Ut prosim (Latin) mottoeng= That I may serve tagline= Invent the Future established= 1872 type= Public land grant university endowment= $ 524.7 million [cite… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”