4 Min read

ACUs and BDUs

Anatomy of a dress shirt, sort of

Writing Toolbox, ages 9 to 99

Bonus – portmanteau

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An editor commented on a passage in my manuscript that did not specify what uniform my daughter was wearing. So, I edited the line for clarity.

During a visit when Cara was a plebe, she was walking with us by the barracks.

“Excuse me, miss,” a yearling said. “Your rank. It’s missing.” She was pointing to Cara’s sternum.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Cara said, as she looked down at the top button of her ACU (Army Combat Uniform) jacket.

I saw nothing. The yearling nodded and walked on. Cara said she’d be right back and ran off. When she returned, she explained that her rank tab was missing. The irony was a plebe had no rank. Even though it had nothing on it, the tab’s absence meant she was out of uniform.

–Mylinh Shattan, Raising Athena (forthcoming 2026)

Uniforms have changed since I was in the Army.

I wore BDUs or Battle Dress Uniform and my daughter wears ACUs or the Army Combat Uniform, which West Point cadets refer to as OCPs, or the current Operational Camouflage Pattern of the ACU. Are you with me?

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The original text was written this way.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Cara said as she looked down.

The question I had was: What is this opening strip of the jacket called that holds the rank tab? Rank was sewn on back then and today it is attached with Velcro. Nice improvement. Easy on and off for promotions and new rank.

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So what do you call the front opening on a jacket?

Placket.

Placket, as a word, rhymes with jacket.

My handy desk-top dictionary* defines it as a slit in a dress, blouse, or skirt. Who knew? A seamstress or tailor, maybe. I checked online to learn the parts of a shirt. Turns out, placket is a common word in fashion. It’s the opening on a garment, that allows ease of putting it on. It’s both the structural and functional opening, and includes the fabric and material.

There’s the front placket, the cuff placket, and a skirt placket which is often closed with a zipper. Plackets are usually reinforced with other material for strength and longer wear.

My friend, Doug, told me about the swacket.

If you did not already know, then you read it here first. This portmanteau** combines sweater and jacket. Perplexity.AI informed me that the term has been in use since 2010 by retailers and brands to describe what has become increasingly popular as transitional outwear–the comfort of a sweater and look of a jacket.

Word nerd that I am, I asked about its adoption into the lexicon. Swacket is in the Urban Dictionary and has yet to be adopted into Merriam-Webster or the Oxford English Dictionary. The word ‘placket’ originates from the French verb plaquer which means ‘to lay’ or ‘clap on.’

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But what of the passage about my daughter’s uniform?

After learning about the parts of a shirt, the placket, its origins and usage, other relevant and irrelevant bits on this and that, you are wondering as I was whether I should use it in my description.

I did not.

Why, you ask? Here are two of an infinite number of options.

(1) “Yes, Ma’am,” Cara said as she looked down at the top of her ACU (Army Combat Uniform) placket.

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(2) “Yes, Ma’am,” Cara said as she looked down at the top button of her ACU (Army Combat Uniform) jacket.

You decide.

Option two is better because I want to communicate detail without distraction.

The focus of the passage is the vignette about rank and attention to detail. If I had the voice of say, David Foster Wallace, and the story involved common use of fashion terms, maybe. But, I am me, and the second option is consistent with my voice and the narrative.

This, for me as the writerly me, is why I lumber along at such a pace. It is necessary to remind myself of the rich and vast diversions along the way.

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FOOTNOTES

*The American Heritage College Dictionary. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993. This dusty old relic from yesteryear is handy quick reference to check such curiosities. But, how would I know where to find a word I don’t know? The internet and artificial intelligence make that easy today. What neither of those do is provide a in-the-hand tactile medium to look up words. How lovely to feel the thumb indents beneath the finger, the letters in gold capitals. The thin, soft pages and the crinkle sound as I flip through from the PI pages to the PL pages, placebo/Plainview. Ah, there it is! toward the bottom of the left column. Plainview? what’s a Long Island town doing here? Ah it’s the city in NW TX S of Amarillo, Pop. 21,700.

**portmanteau — such a lovely word with multiple meanings and worthy of its own letter. Surely someone has written about it, so do a search and find out, write me if you do. A portmanteau is a traveling suitcase which is made of leather and opens into two equal parts. You’ve seen it in old films or new films about old times. I’m referring to the new term ‘swacket’ which is made when two words are combined and give it a new meaning. Examples are sweather + jacket = swacket OR motor + hotel = motel OR breakfast + lunch = brunch. Fun, I agree.

What was curious for me was to discover who coined this use of portmanteau. Any guesses? Lewis Carroll. Such a lovely visual, to see the suitcase shut into one carrying case. Two words shut in or packed into one, carrying the meanings of both and giving it a new meaning.

PERPLEXITY.AI on the origins of this meaning of portmanteau: Lewis Carroll played a key role in popularizing the word “portmanteau” as a linguistic term. In his 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll introduced “portmanteau words” through a conversation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice. Humpty Dumpty explains that certain words, like those in the poem “Jabberwocky,” are formed by combining two meanings packed into one word, much like a portmanteau suitcase which opens into two equal compartments. For example, “slithy” combines “slimy” and “lithe,” and “mimsy” merges “miserable” and “flimsy.” Carroll coined this usage of “portmanteau” to describe blended words, which has since become a fundamental concept in linguistics for describing words like “smog” or “brunch”.