Does anyone think that this term for Royal Marines is connected to the term "Jolly Boat"?

I believe the term comes from the Dutch "Jolle": small boat. We got quite a bit from them, including orlop, (and even "Whoops a daisy!)

The RM term is said to be derived from an old name for the Trained Bands.

The Royal Marines are indeed known as 'Jollies' and celebrated as such in Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'Soldier and Sailor Too.' I hope his attempt at rendering the speech of the common soldiery doesn't make it too incomprehensible!



http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2700/

Modern Marines are Royals or bootnecks - which term derives from the stock they used to wear.

Does anyone know how old the term Jolly/Jollies is?

The OED has 1829 as its first record in print.

The expression "jolly marine" seems to have been common in the early eighteen hundreds and a "Jolly Marine and Sailor" public house seems to have existed in Portsmouth in the middle of the 18th C.

Soldier an' Sailor Too
By Rudyard Kipling
Born 1865
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the Crocodile,
I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style.
'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates,
an' I sez to 'im, "'Oo are you?"
Sez 'e, "I'm a Jolly -- 'Er Majesty's Jolly -- soldier an' sailor too!"
Now 'is work begins by Gawd knows when, and 'is work is never through;
'E isn't one o' the reg'lar Line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew.
'E's a kind of a giddy harumfrodite -- soldier an' sailor too!

and the poem goes on another six verses

I just found my copy of Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems and was looking for that poem, though it's not included. Ah well.

Perhaps Sharpiefan and others could try pasting the first line of Kipling's poem into Google. It comes up quickly that way.

Also "Jolle" is an accepted term for a large dingy in Danish [as well as the Dutch quoted above]

[Nothing to do with Marines : but Kipling also wrote "The Dutch in the Medway" If wars were won by feasting, or victory by song .. Another excellent poem]