{"id":18558,"date":"2013-01-14T09:15:21","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T14:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=18558"},"modified":"2013-01-14T09:15:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T14:15:43","slug":"in-the-re-enacting-world-dont-be-a-walt-or-a-farb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/01\/14\/in-the-re-enacting-world-dont-be-a-walt-or-a-farb\/","title":{"rendered":"In the re-enacting world, don’t be a “Walt” or a “Farb”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dick Delingpole<\/a> tells us more about the less-welcome members of the re-enacting hobby:<\/p>\n

Re-enactors have a term of abuse, \u201cFarb\u201d, thought to have originated in the States, which is used to describe someone whose authenticity standards leave much to be desired. There is also a term of abuse directed at re-enactors from outside the hobby, notably from the Armed Forces: \u201cWalt\u201d. It means \u201cfantasist\u201d or \u201cwannabe\u201d, and derives from James Thurber\u2019s fictional literary fantasist, Walter Mitty. It is not used affectionately, and implies ineptitude with delusions of grandeur. Just google \u201cwalt\u201d and \u201cre-enactor\u201d and you\u2019ll get the idea.<\/p>\n

Despite my deep and abiding affection for our Armed Forces, I think there\u2019s a bit of misunderstanding here.<\/p>\n

In 12 years, the only re-enactors I\u2019ve met who think that they\u2019re soldiers are the ones who actually are. And there are many of them: regulars and TA, retired, current and soon-to-be-joining. While ex-soldiers are attracted to the cameraderie associated with re-enactment, many are pursuing an interest in the history of their own regiments which doesn\u2019t confine them to an armchair.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Early period re-enactors (anything pre WWII, but the earlier the better) attract relatively light amounts of abuse from the Armed Forces. One fellow Napoleonic re-enactor who is a serving Major in the Rifles, describes the kind of Walt most likely to get a soldier\u2019s back up. They are overweight middle-aged blokes who can\u2019t march or hold a gun correctly, but who have the kit, uniform and insignia of the current SAS or other specialist elite unit. Here I feel the insult is possibly justified. Why, asks the squaddy, don\u2019t these people just join the army? And why must they represent elite forces whose serving members have sweated blood to be part of?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Elizabeth for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick Delingpole tells us more about the less-welcome members of the re-enacting hobby: Re-enactors have a term of abuse, \u201cFarb\u201d, thought to have originated in the States, which is used to describe someone whose authenticity standards leave much to be desired. There is also a term of abuse directed at re-enactors from outside the hobby, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,5],"tags":[31,874],"class_list":["post-18558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-history","category-military","tag-army","tag-re-enacting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4Pk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18558"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18566,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18558\/revisions\/18566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}