Word: gremlin
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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...R.A.F. first learned about the little creatures in 1923 and called them gremlins -probably from the obsolete Old English-transitive verb greme, meaning: to vex. Yet it was not until World War II that the R.A.F. really got to know the gremlins. Then they learned that a female gremlin is a finella and that the babies are widgets. Flyers also learned that gremlins must always be referred to as them; gremlins prefer them to they or it or he and she because them conveys a feeling of the gremlin's immanence and nameless power...
Fighter pilots, more inclined to have trouble with gremlins than other branches of the air services, often are bothered by gremlins who sit on their shoulders and make a noise like a knocking motor when the motor is running smoothly. When a pilot has been flying for a long time through clouds, a gremlin may whisper into the pilot's ear: "You fathead, you're flying upside down!" The pilot then hurriedly turns over and flies upside down while the gremlin laughs and laughs, silently. Another favorite gremlin trick is to climb into gun barrels and deflect bullets...
Daring. Bomber pilots say that the most annoying gremlins are those which like to play seesaw on the automatic horizon or use the ship's compass for a merry-go-round while the pilots are trying to fly blind. The most dangerous gremlins are those which delight in covering bombers' wings with ice. These are a middle-aged breed of gremlin, called spandules, who never bother with planes flying lower than 10,000 feet...
Necessary. Nothing could be more natural than that out of the tradition of Irish, Scottish and English whimsy the gremlin should appear, streamlined for the 20th Century. There is a sociological and psychological necessity in the thinking of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples to conjure up the embodiment of fate in a charming form. Herr Goebbels in Berlin would not understand...