From Mouin: "Grammarians would describe the use of "boot", in the phrase "boots on the ground", as a case of synecdoche - a figure of speech where the part represents the whole.
In English the expression is, by now, a bog-standard cliche (the military equivalent of "bums on seats"), but it can sound even worse in translation. "It's not used in Arabic because we have a problem with boots. Footwear in general in Islamic culture has this negative connotation," says Mohamed Yehia, of BBC Arabic. "Boots are something humiliating or unclean.""
In English the expression is, by now, a bog-standard cliche (the military equivalent of "bums on seats"), but it can sound even worse in translation. "It's not used in Arabic because we have a problem with boots. Footwear in general in Islamic culture has this negative connotation," says Mohamed Yehia, of BBC Arabic. "Boots are something humiliating or unclean.""
