Wanted: military jargon

DannyDelion

New Member
Hello everybody; I'm new to this board.

We've been shooting a short movie, taking place in a military environment. The German title is 'Jetzt aber Ballett' which translates roughly into 'hurry up'. It's a common slang term in the army to shout at your slow recruits.

Not what to call that movie in English? There surely are a lot of similar slang terms. They need to be of appropiate length for a movie title - more than one word, but not a lengthy sentence.

Thanks already for your numerous propositions! ;)

PS Feel free to move this thread to the correct subforum, if this is not the place.
 
Just looking at other translations online to see if it would give you any thoughts, the only translation I could get was 'now, however, ballet'. Don't think this will help greatly but you never know hey.
 
Thanks, but I don't need a translation. I'm rather looking for similar orders native English speaking army people would use once their recruits are too slow.
 
'Get Moving' or 'Get a Move On' are the first things that springs to mind. Kind of has a better tone and....whatever the word is, than 'Hurry Up' does.
 
"get a move on"
It is an expression often used by British NCOs

NCO ist das gleiche wie ein Unteroffizier.
Hertzlig velkommen :)
 
Thanks so much already. But I'm not quite satisfied yet ;).
I guess something like 'get a move on' would be widely understood on the streets, by people without any military experience.
Are there some more, well, opaque terms? Something a civilian wouldn't correctly interpret? That would be way more suitable.
 
Thanks so much already. But I'm not quite satisfied yet ;).
I guess something like 'get a move on' would be widely understood on the streets, by people without any military experience.
Are there some more, well, opaque terms? Something a civilian wouldn't correctly interpret? That would be way more suitable.

Mainly because it is term widely used in the military. Sometimes having a common term as the title helps grab people's attention. Though if you don't want to use those titles then feel free too. It's not my movie.
 
It's not really a term blasted at a slow recruit, more a term used to describe the overall use of urgency in the military despite the fact that such urgency is occasionally ridiculous. But (and I think it would make a good title for a movie)...

"Hurry Up and Wait" - refers to the time honoured practice of rushing your ass off to get ready and get somewhere ready to undertake some task, only to wait around bored off your head for ages before the activity you were supposed to be hurrying up to start doing 6 hours ago hasn't started yet.

In terms of it's usage, I can't be sure if it's used in any continental European militaries or the US - AFAIK it's a saying inherited from the British, certainly in use by Australians and New Zealanders.
 
Back
Top