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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'>It seems to me that the very common
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps command phrase “<u>As you were</u>!”
would be the likely source for Tok Pisin word “<u>asua</u>”, but
only if the word isn’t documented in Tok Pisin dictionaries and
literature prior to 1942. I suggest this because during U.S.
involvement in World War II (1941-1945) the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine
Corps military carried out extensive logistic and combat operations throughout Melanesia
and Micronesia, and the Mihalic/Burton dictionary’s definitions for the
use of the Tok Pisin word “asua” are identical to the way the
command “<u>As you were</u>!” is used in the U.S. Navy and Marine
Corps. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'>During WWII the U.S. Navy’s
construction battalions (C.B.’s, or “SeaBees”) were
responsible in the Pacific theatre of operations for constructing airfields,
roads, and cargo handling facilities. Lae, for just one example, was a
major combat staging and logistics port for Allied operations carried out in
New Guinea. Local labor was recruited from among the indigenous peoples
in those islands, primarily to do simple lifting and carrying tasks. Obviously,
language differences made understanding instructions difficult for the
indigenous laborers when given by supervising, English-speaking, SeaBee enlisted
men and officers. Those laborers obviously made mistakes from time to
time, and in situations where a SeaBee supervisor saw a laborer or group of
laborers making one or more mistakes, the supervisor would have shouted out “As
you were!” as a command to the laborer or laborers to <i><u>immediately </u></i>stop
what they were doing. The mistake would then be corrected (likely some
kind of reprimand issued, perhaps along with various swear words) and then the
command “Carry on!” would be made (or perhaps angrily shouted?) for
the affected laborers to continue with the tasks they were doing. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'>Obviously, even though “As
you were” could be used in a non-aggressive way (as in “carry on”,
gentlemen), when it is shouted when mistakes are being observed by supervisors some
degree of blame or error would be associated with the command. This could
explain why the Mihalic/Burton dictionary definition includes the sense of
blame or error when “asua” is uttered in Tok Pisin. My guess
is that when “asua” was used in the decade following WWII it was
uttered as a command in the sense that something was being done wrong, and/or
that blame was being pointed out, as noted in the Mihalic/Burton dictionary. But
with the end of WWII and the abandonment of Allied forces military bases, the
use of “asua” in subsequent generations would not only be mitigated
and less likely to be used, but the knowledge of the source of where the word originally
came from (but not the way or circumstances in which it is used) would very
likely also be lost.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'>I believe the nature of the command
“As you were” would have made a great impression on the affected
laborers, and the command’s Tok Pisin phonetic equivalent “asua”
might well have entered the language sometime between 1941 and 1945.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Ken Kellogg-Smith<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Abingdon, Maryland U.S.A.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p>
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