An awkward squad is a group of individuals, normally within an existing organisation or structure, who resist or obstruct change, either through incompetence or by deliberate association.

Origin

It is commonly accepted that shortly before his death in 1796

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

uttered the words "Don't let the awkward squad fire over me". At this time the phrase was in use in military slang for a group of recruits who seemed incapable of understanding discipline or not yet sufficiently trained or disciplined to properly carry out their duties.

Literary use

John Clare John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20t ...

, an English peasant poet, wrote with his own spelling and no punctuation. He complained in the 1820s to his editors that people could understand him, and he refused to use "that awkward squad of colon, semi-colon, comma, and full stop", according to the display in the John Clare Cottage, in

Helpston Helpston (also, formerly, "Helpstone") is an English village in Cambridgeshire. Historically; it was formerly in the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire, subsequently (1965–1974) in Huntingdon and Peterborough, then in Cambridgeshire. ...

. In Canto 7, stanza 52 of

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

's ''

Don Juan Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. The original version of the story of Don Juan appears in the 1630 play (''The Trickster of Seville and t ...

'', the Russian general

Suvorov Count Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov-Rymniksky, Prince of Italy () was a Russian general and military theorist in the service of the Russian Empire. Born in Moscow, he studied military history as a young boy and joined the Imperial Russian ...

(or "Suwarrow" as Byron anglicizes it) is described training the 'awkward squad' prior to the battle of Ismail.

Thomas Babington Macaulay Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was an English historian, poet, and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster General between 184 ...

, in his 1842 essay on

Frederic the Great Frederic may refer to: Places United States * Frederic, Wisconsin, a village in Polk County * Frederic Township, Michigan, a township in Crawford County ** Frederic, Michigan, an unincorporated community Other uses * Frederic (band), a Japanese r ...

, used the phrase to describe the army of Frederic's father. In her 1853 novel '' Villette'',

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...

writes of M. Paul Emanuel: "Irritable he was; one heard that, as he apostrophized with vehemence the awkward squad under his orders." Brontë had also used the phrase four years earlier, in '' Shirley''. In Chapter 16 of ''

Our Mutual Friend ''Our Mutual Friend'', published in 1864–1865, is the last novel completed by English author Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. ...

'' (1864–65),

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

described the character Sloppy as a "Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life". Norman Cameron used the words to end his 1950 poem ''Forgive me, sire''.

Trade unionism

The tag of 'awkward squad' has been applied to a group of left-wing

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

ists in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, marked out by their opposition to the Labour Party's economic policies. The group includes

Bob Crow Robert Crow (13 June 1961 – 11 March 2014) was an English trade union leader who served as the General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) from 2002 until his death in 2014. He was also a member of ...

Mark Serwotka Mark Henryk Serwotka (; born 26 April 1963) is a retired trade unionist who was General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest trade union representing British civil servants. He was President of the Trades Unio ...

, and

Tony Woodley Anthony Woodley, Baron Woodley (born 2 January 1948) is a British people, British trade unionist who was the Joint-Unite the Union, General Secretary of Unite, a union formed through the merger of Amicus (trade union), Amicus and the Transport an ...

. In a Parliamentary sense, however, it can also apply to the left-wing of the Labour Party, which perennially occupies a bench of the House of Commons which allows its members to heckle and unnerve the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

regularly.

References

{{reflist

External links

"Tackling the awkward squad: monadic input/output, concurrency, exceptions, and foreign-language calls in Haskell"
- a paper by

Simon Peyton Jones Simon Peyton Jones (born 18 January 1958) is a British computer scientist who researches the implementation and applications of functional programming languages, particularly lazy functional programming. Education Peyton Jones graduated fro ...

Slang Military terminology