[kj] Mr Black seeks clarification

[jo]

  Near the end of the nineteenth century, the British army had a military sanatorium at Deolali, about 100 miles north-east of Bombay. One of its functions was to act as a transit camp for soldiers who had finished their tours of duty ("time-expired) and were waiting for a troop ship to take them back to Britain. Ships only left Bombay between November and March, so a soldier ending his tour outside those dates might have a long wait for transport.

  To say someone was doolally tap meant he was mad, or at least very eccentric. The first bit is obviously the result of the standard British soldier's way of hacking foreign-sounding names into something that sounded English. The second part is from a Persian or Urdu word tap, a malarial fever (ultimately from Sanskrit tapa, heat or torment). So the whole expression might be loosely translated as "camp fever".

  Am I right?
  :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

  You are.

  I was wrong.  
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