what is iddyumpty?

Hello.

"IDDY UMPTY
Signaller. Iddy and umpty were verbal ways of expressing the dashes
and dots of Morse code. "Most of [the signallers] trench time was
spent in their own dugout, testing lines and sharing private jokes on
technicalities with other iddy umpties" - Denis Winter, Death's Men. "
source: Great War Slang
http://members.fortunecity.com/dikigoros/greatwarslang.htm

"It is thought that the words "iddy" and "umpty" were used to
verbalise the dots and dashes in Morse code. In this fashion "umpty"
was the letter "t" ("umpty-umpty" was the letter "m", as in "Morse"),
and the word came to be used in military slang to refer to an unknown
quantity."
source: yaelf.com
http://www.yaelf.com/guest.shtml

Also see this newsgroup discussion thread, "Subject: Re: IDDY UMPTY ",
cached by Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=ZPywLBAPmkBzEw%2BK%40awards.demon.co.uk
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=1997022610505367890%40zetnet.co.uk

------

search strategy:
"iddy umpty"

I hope this helps.  If anything is unclear, or if this didn't answer
your question, please use the "request clarification" feature to let
me know. Thanks.

great just what i wanted