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E.V. Lucas in The Sphere, reprinted as COINAGE OF WAR WORDS in Vinton Review (Vinton IA), November 14, 1918, p. 3—
[As for camouflage] I cannot remember any instance of a foreign word, so peculiarly un-English as this, not only being so rapidly and universally adopted but also being so rarely mispronounced. I still often overhear knots of men who in their talk about the war refer to the Kay-ser, and the utter anglicization of French battle names by public house military experts is perhaps the most charmIng feature of their discussions; but camouflage remains as French in sound in this country as in its own, and every one uses it. Here, however, it has become so elastic as to be the recognized form for any kind of pretence whatsoever.…
I have been astonished recently by examples of the hold of camouflage on all types of mind. Journeying the other day from a Sussex station to London, under war conditions—fifty of us standing all the way in the guard's van—I had some talk with the guard, who, on removing his cap to wipe a heated brow, revealed himself as bald as the dome of St. Paul’s. It caused him no distress: some men, he remarked, would camouflage it with a wig, but not he. Earlier In the day, my host, a vigilant and suspicious reader of the press, had dismissed an optimistic article on current events as "mere camouflage.” The next day a schoolboy back for the holidays two weeks in advance of the proper time said that a scare of measles had brought about that desired result; at least, that is what the schoolmaster said, but personally he thought it was just camouflage to cover the fact that grub was getting so jolly expensive. And a little Iater a facetious gentleman near me in a restaurant asked the wine waiter to bring him some claret instead of the camouflaged water which he called whisky. Probably the word is in the nursery by this time.
Note As some people will remember, British humorist E.V. Lucas teamed up with George Morrow in 1911 to produce a delightful book of mismatched text and pictures, titled What A Life!, a subject I have talked about in a recent essay on digital montages, but also in a video talk about the logic of comic invention.
