Hi Dennis
I believe the song you have in mind is
G.I. Jive, 1944, by Johnny Mercer. The song-writer can be heard singing it on
this YouTube clip. (A great version was recorded by Louis Jordan, and was, I think, the best-selling performance of the song, but I couldn't find a clip of that.) The problem for your argument, Dennis, is that the song was mocking the military penchant for abbreviations, and the letters of
LIEUT are clearly spelled out, not pronounced as a word:
If you're a P-V-T, your duty
Is to salute the L-I-E-U-T
But if you brush the L-I-E-U-T
The M-P makes you K-P on the Q-T
I can't resist also quoting these lines from the song, although they have nothing to do with the issue at hand:
Chuck all your junk
Back in the trunk
Fall on your bunk
Clunk!!
Somehow, they don't write lyrics like that any more.
Back to
lieut. Dictionaries that list it generally give it a capital
L or a following full stop/period, or both. And that's the way it seems to be written normally, too. I think it would be used more often as a written abbreviation than in speech. And when it is used in speech, it would usually be as a form of address, where a capital letter would be appropriate. As in the one example I found where the word was used in dialogue in fiction: "You know why they sent us spitting distance from Germany, Lieut?" (from a 2008 novel set in WWII,
White Flag Down by Joel N. Ross.)
So, sorry Dennis, but I'm not convinced.
