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Who or what were the Flossies.

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Tuesday, 2nd February 2010

  I was reading a passage from The Scarecrows by Robert Westall, and it refers to the gates of a British Military Cemetery being wired up by order of the Flossies. Who were they?
  
  GF

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Wednesday, 3rd February 2010

  
  
  
  
  
  
  You may have a try on by the above links by yourself, because I can´t get through. I´ve supposed that it might have something to do with military abbreviations.

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• Message 3

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 4th February 2010

  Judging by the way it has been used I cannot help thinking that it was a reference to the upper echelons of the military hierarchy and so I had a look though my dictionaries of slang. The term floss had been used since the nineteenth century in North America to describe a well dressed or showy individual and would certainly be apt for the top brass with all their ribbons, epaulets and gold braid. It had appeared in print beyond North America when the word was featured in such a context in the Penguin New Writing XVIII published in 1943. I believe corresponds with the period Robert Westall wanted to evoke with the use of term. I cannot be certain that is accurate but given the context you have provided it would at least be plausible.

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• Message 4

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  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 4th February 2010

  LOl, thanks for that info. It's amazing the strange things that come up on these sites.
  
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• Message 5

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  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 4th February 2010

  Re: Message 4.
  
  Grumpyfred,
  
  I think that you sparked the challenge for me to find something in "any" case. I even let my urgent backlog for Poldertijger rest for this challenge...But I am in good company as my German friend Thomas and the illustrious lol beeble. Between brackets: so glad to see him still on the boards, as that other illustrious Nordmann.
  
  "It's amazing the strange things that come up on these sites."
  
  With all kind of combinations as in Google: flossies (flossy, flossie) WWII military slang, I found all kind of strange things...
  
  As for instance: South-African English nickname for the C130 Hercules. But that was "une fausse piste" (a false piste, hmm not a slope for skiing, but rather "a trail"). The C130 was only built after WWII.
  
  Then a lot of strange things in slang, as the signification that lol mentioned, but also if I recall it well in Australian some kind of meat? But also all kind of slang names for girls and so on.
  
  After all my research I find the explanation from lol the best as the slang word among others can be easely used for the military high bras with their "floches" and their "bazar" of "hangings" and "stickings".
  
  I first thought in the direction of the French "floche" (adjectif: fluffy, woolly), substantif: a tassel, tuft. And so I come back to WWII, where, and you can even see it in WWII documentaries, the "cap" for lack of a better word, that military had on their head, had on the fronthead top a "tassel". In our Flemish dialect, we call it also the same as in French "floche". We call also a "floche", the detachable tassel of the ball that the kids try to catch while turning on a merry-go-round on a fair.
  
  PS: I did the research some days ago, even before Thomas and lol, but didn't want to publish it, while I didn't find a suitable answer, but after I saw Thomas and now lol I...
  
  Second PS: Now I see how Nik in his Greek etymology can come to all kind of "deductions"...
  
  Warm regards to all the friends...and others...
  
  Paul.
  

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 4th February 2010

  Thanks Paul. I can see you having lots of sleepless nights. LOL It should be conpulsary for all books to carry a glosary of any slang used. Mind if it was about Liverpool or London, it would double the size of the book.
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• Message 7

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  Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Monday, 31st May 2010

  ³Ò°ù³Ü³¾±è²â´Ú°ù±ð»å…
  Having spent the last few weeks bored out of my mind while confined to a hospital bed, the only escape being watching the TV thru glazed eyes as though it were going out of fashion… something kicked me back into the land of the living temporarily at least. You may or may not be aware, that daytime TV can be tiresome, but channel 12 on freeview is titled ‘Yesterday’ and I find it one of the few I can tolerate. Anyway… last week, or maybe the week before, thru half closed eyes I was aware of a program about ‘Our Boys in Aden’ and our eventual withdrawal.
  
  What brought me out of a drugged stupor were the several mentions of ‘F.L.O.S.Y.’ and an account by a British soldier mentioning a skirmish with the Flosy commandoes… in all the Flosy were mentioned at least six times and news reel footage showed several anti British slogans painted on various buildings including F.L.O.S.Y.
  Remembering your thread on ‘flossies. who were they’ it quickly took my mind to find out more.
  Message 1 - posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) , Feb 2, 2010
  I was reading a passage from The Scarecrows by Robert Westall, and it refers to the gates of a British Military Cemetery being wired up by order of the Flossies. Who were they?
  
  GF
  
  Later throughout yet another restless night, and while everyone was asleep, I persuaded a very nice nurse to Google it for me. Not flossies… but ‘Flosy commandoes’… Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen or FLOSY for short.
  
  With a little luck, I think this may be what you were after… if of course you haven’t already discovered it yourself.
  
  Kind regards… bandick…
  

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Monday, 31st May 2010

  Grumpy Fred,
  Just to add to the confusion. 'Floss' plural 'Flossy' is the rough silk which surrounds the cocoon of the silkworm.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Monday, 31st May 2010

  Spruggles, one should never go to hospital, as you will find that the places are full of sick people. If you have to though, the first rule is to find out who is on the escape committee. As to your suggestion, no this was a Second World War North Africa thing, and as far as I can find out, it was an unkind remark aimed at officers who spent their war polishing desks and making life hard for the men at the front. A classic was the front line troops being told to polish their brasses for an inspection by Churchill. Which of course in the desert would show the enemy where they where from miles away.

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• Message 10

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Monday, 31st May 2010

  GF
  
  I thought I had posted on this thread before - don't know if I put it on the wrong thread orit just disappeared into the ether.
  
  I think Flossies in this context is a reference to Field Security - the Military Police and the Intelligence Corps both had Field Security (abbreviated as Fld Sy) Sections during WWII. Among their responsibilities was recommending physical security measures (i.e. barbed wire, sandbags and controlled entry points)for key points. It was, of course, up to someone else to do the hard work.
  
  Westall did his National Service in the Canal Zone at the beginning of the 1950s, when there was a lot of wiring going on as anti-terrorist measures, so he could have read across from that experience.
  
  I am not a great fan of Westall. I think some of what he wrote is "false memory", and he allowed his politics to influence his writing. In particular, his unsympathetic portrayal of the Poles in "The Machinegunners" owes more to the Left's anti-Free Poles stance in the 1970s (when he was writing) than the reality of 1940.

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• Message 11

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Monday, 31st May 2010

  LW, I may have missed it. Yes, again that would fit. Sadly the course I was on that brought up the question has since finished. I will pass the answer on to the members though via e mail.
  
  GF

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