Doolali

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Anyone know the origin of the word "doolali", or know where I can find anything about this word? My mother thinks it is connected to a place name in India!!Thanks,Simon,Rijswijk, The Netherlands.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Anyone know the origin of the word "doolali", or know where I can find anything about this word? My mother thinks it is connected to a place name in India!![/nq]
Google on "Doolally origin".
Mums always know best.

Ross Howard

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anyone know the origin of the word "doolali", or know where I can find anything about this word? My mother thinks it is connected to a place name in India!![/nq]
Apparently so. Try going to www.onelook.com and spelling it as doolally.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Mums always know best.[/nq]
AARRGGHH!!! Oh my ***, not again!
You wouldn't like to tell her she was right, would you?

Only kidding,
thanks for your help.
Simon.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anyone know the origin of the word "doolali", or know where I can find anything about this word? My mother thinks it is connected to a place name in India!![/nq]
From Deolali, pronounced 'doolally' (at least by Tommy Atkins) Originally 'Deolali tap' (tap being malarial fever in this case) Deolali was a major transit camp in British India. The town is, of course, still there.

John Dean
Oxford

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Anyone know the origin of the word "doolali", or know ... thinks it is connected to a place name in India!![/nq]
[nq:1]From Deolali, pronounced 'doolally' (at least by Tommy Atkins) Originally 'Deolali tap' (tap being malarial fever in this case) Deolali was a major transit camp in British India. The town is, of course, still there. John Dean Oxford[/nq]
Also a BMH (British Military Hospital) where soldiers with mental problems were treated, the other major transit camp was Kalyan, a few miles outside Bombay. "Welcome to India but mum's the word"
The banner was stretched over the Gateway to India greeting the troopships as they docked.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]From Deolali, pronounced 'doolally' (at least by Tommy Atkins) Originally ... town is, of course, still there. John Dean Oxford[/nq]
[nq:1]Also a BMH (British Military Hospital) where soldiers with mental problems were treated, the other major transit camp was Kalyan, ... India but mum's the word" The banner was stretched over the Gateway to India greeting the troopships as they docked.[/nq]
I don't find the hospital connection very convincing. If the original expression was* 'doolally tap', which the authorities seem to agree on, then it was first used for physical illness. It was also used for what happened to people who were already *in Deolali. I don't doubt there were hospital facilities in Deolali since it was a major transit camp. I don't doubt that soldiers with mental problems were sent there, since there was nowhere else to send them. That there was a fully fledged sanitorium facility for the mentally ill in the early 20th Century seems to me unlikely. The Army was not noted for its sympathetic view of those who claimed to be unfit for duty but could produce no physical symptoms.

As Frank Richards said in Old Soldier-Sahib - ''The well-known saying among soldiers when speaking of a man who does queer things, ?Oh, he's got the Doo-lally tap,? originated, I think, in the peculiar way men behaved owing to the boredom of that camp.''
People favouring the hospital theme seem to claim that Deolali Military Sanitorium was in Mumbai (then Bombay). Partridge makes reference to this. But Deolali is some 60 miles outside Mumbai.

John Dean
Oxford

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Also a BMH (British Military Hospital) where soldiers with mental ... the Gateway to India greeting the troopships as they docked.[/nq]
[nq:1]I don't find the hospital connection very convincing. If the original expression was* 'doolally tap', which the authorities seem to ... Military Sanitorium was in Mumbai (then Bombay). Partridge makes reference to this. But Deolali is some 60 miles *outside Mumbai.[/nq]
Not so, the BMH at Bombay was in Colaba, I spent some time in there with a bout of malaria.
Poona and Deolali were the mental facilities.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I don't find the hospital connection very convincing. If the ... to this. But Deolali is some 60 miles outside Mumbai.[/nq]
[nq:1]Not so, the BMH at Bombay was in Colaba, I spent some time in there with a bout of malaria. Poona and Deolali were the mental facilities.[/nq]
They may well have been the mental facilities by the time the Army got used to the idea that such a thing as mental illness existed, but we're looking for some kind of sanitorium / mental hospital in India at the time the expression 'Doolally tap' gained currency - which was no later than the 1920s and possibly very early in the 20th Century.
John Dean
Oxford

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