Guest:

Ouch, yes -- you're right -- I'm wildly overinterpeting.

"
I am NOT saying that the "Trooper" version is old. The one in the DT wasa probably cobbled together by McColl for his album from several sources and has no useful significance as to age.
"

Ouch again -- especially as the McColl text is the only one to contain the term "boondooks". (And I +was+ sloppy here, misplacing it in South Africa. I think I managed to get this tangled in my head with Hardy's "Drummer Hodge" poem.

While swaddy dates from 1812, squaddie dates from 1930. Dunno if this is significant, except that I'd assume the texts which have "swaddy" are earlier, since it's more likely that the less-familiar swaddy would be changed to squaddie rather than vice verse.

So I (unreservedly and embarrasedly) withdraw the 1905 connection.

Also boondooks -- this seems as Guest implies, most likely a Ewan McColl addition.

But -- and taking all the points about the dating of the terms running way back -- there does seem to be a moment when the flash girls enter the thread with the swaddy.

That aside, swaddy/squaddie interests me as it indexes a shift in the status of the dying whatever -- he begins as officer class, but pretty soon becomes distinctly other ranks.

Robin

Oh, I found this among my notes:

This British soldier's variant of the "Rake" ballad is reported as
"...probably the oldest of British barrack-room favorites." Old army
regulars claim that the song originated in the first expeditionary force sent to France during World War I, but it was likewise known among soldiers during the Boer War, as evidenced by MacColl's having heard an almost identical version sung by a ninety-year old actor, Norman Partridge, dating from the South African campaigns.

-- not sure just where i picked that up.

R.