no duff
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.36 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
intj
Indicating that this is not a drill or training exercise.
Australian usage; Canadian usage; New Zealand usage; British usage; Slang
noun
An incident that is not a drill or training exercise; an emergency. Also end of exercise. Stop drill immediately. As a ‘tap out’ called by during physical training. Sim munitions training in Australian Swat ‘end ex’.
Australian usage; Canadian usage; New Zealand usage; British usage; Slang
Example Sentences
- "“Sunray, No Duff, No Duff, No Duff. We need a medic, we’ve got a man down. Wound to the upper arm, and major blood loss. Over.” All the other chatter on all the radios went dead with the ‘No Duff.’ It was the signal for a medical emergency."
- "“Someone grabbed me from behind and said ‘No duff,’ which means this is real,” said LCdr. Wong. “That’s what everybody heard, ‘Plane crash, 737,’ and all of us started running to our posts,” he told reporters after Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived here to commend those who raced to the scene."
- "“Get him in here, and radio a ‘no duff’ [casualty] to HQ.”"
- "[p. 224] I called on the radio and—this was the most horrifying part of this—I couldn’t reach my observation post where my guys were. But I did get the command post in the middle of Srebrenica. I told them, “This is a no duff situation. You’ve got two men down and we’re on the trail.’ [p 236, glossary] No duff The radio code words used to get people off the air because a serious incident has occurred."
Etymology
From the RAF slang expression "duff gen" meaning bad or fake information; "no duff", by extension means "accurate", also: "stop operations until ordered otherwise". It comes from the term "No Direction Finding" in the British Army in regards to radio/signals procedure. It was used when in training or on exercise to pass a message true in nature but not related to the aims of the exercise. This could be an accident, change of exercise requirements, etc. This means the message to be sent should not be subject to radio direction finding to locate the transmitting station by either the blue or red side. i.e. "Hello zero this is two one alpha, NO DUFF message over". "NO DUFF two one alpha this is zero, roger out to you, hello all stations this is zero stand by for NO DUFF message out, two one alpha send NO DUFF over". "NO DUFF hello zero this is two one alpha, two one bravo has rolled their rover over, over". Normally followed by laughter or expletives from the zero's CP (command post).
Usage
- Australian usage
- Canadian usage
- New Zealand usage
- British usage
- Slang