The Things They Carried: Dialect 1 key example

The narrator includes a number of American military abbreviations in the narration and dialogue. Because he does not gloss them, it seems that he expects his reader to be familiar with them. This shows how a specific context—such as the army—comes with its own rules and language, which people have to adapt to. Some of the abbreviations are more likely to be familiar to the reader, such as VC (Vietcong), AWOL (absent without official leave), R&R (rest and recuperation), GI (galvanized iron, meaning soldier), and MIA (missing in action). Other abbreviations that appear once or several times are more specific and might only be familiar to readers with a special interest in military history, such as SOP (standard operating procedure), RTO (recovery time objective), LSA (logistics support area), LZ (landing zone), NCO (noncommissioned officer), MP (military police), and CID (criminal investigation division). Sometimes, the context makes it possible for the reader to infer the general meaning of a given abbreviation—such as when the narrator mentions weapons. Regardless of how familiar a reader is with them, these abbreviations contribute to the men's dialect and to the stories' military atmosphere.

Besides abbreviations, the men employ a fair amount of slang. O'Brien introduces the reader to a few of these in the first story, like how they refer to themselves as "legs or grunts" and that "to carry something was to hump it." Helicopters are choppers, there is an area of operations that they refer to as the Rocket Pocket, the special forces are Greenies, and they occasionally refer to their uniform as fatigues. Moreover, the dialogue contains a lot of swearing and dirty words, and they frequently use fillers like goddamn, dead-on, man, and kickass. They also use offensive slang words and racial slurs to talk about local Vietnamese people, including "mama-san," "poppa-san," and "gook." To develop the men's dialect, O'Brien is careful with his word choice, using many phrases that one would expect young American men to use. Such phrases include "ain't," "wacked-out," "groove," "beat it," and "roger-dodger," among many others. Many portions of dialogue give a sense of the men's boyish dialect, such as when Mitchel Sanders says "that just revs up the willies" or "they don't say diddly."

While the men take part in a shared culture, assume a shared identity, and speak with a shared dialect, it is important to note that the individual men still possess distinctive ways of expressing themselves. For example, Ted Lavender was known for getting high and telling everyone that they've got themselves "a nice mellow war today." After he dies, as the men prepare his body to be carried away, they make him come alive by mimicking his unique style of speech: “Hey, no sweat, I’m mellow.”