Language also is a victim of war. It suffers collateral damage. Both casualty (any chance occurrence) and collateral damage<注4> are modern euphemisms. War is a rearranger of language as well as of cities and bodies. That rearrange is a euphemism. It is unsurprising that an event as wild with shock and awe<注5> should create euphemisms. We try to create a linguistic bath spa, where evil is dispelled<注6> by a dip in the waters of euphemism. Jargon<注7> clouds the truth and sedates<注8> the imagination. Its value is notorious in totalitarian<注9> countries, where the dictator tries to make murder and aggression respectable by calling them liquidation<注10> and liberation?
On the one hand, in the sandstorm of war, the poor bloody infantry<注11>(and pilots) need unmistakable orders to direct them precisely on to their correct targets. This is now done more accurately by computers and other high-tech kit<注12> than by subalterns<注13> directing their men's attention to bushy-top trees and churches with spires (not many in the desert), or galloping dispatch riders<注14> sending the Light Brigade to ride down the Valley of Death. On the other hand, governments need euphemism and sinew-stiffening<注15> spin to persuade their people to put up with the waste of war.
The first shot of this war was fired at a target of opportunity<注16> believed by the CIA to be President Saddam Hussein and his sons in a bunker. This new jargon stands an old euphemism on its head. A target of opportunity originally meant random bombing. It was the common instruction to bomber crews in the Second World War who might fail to reach their assigned targets, but had to jettison<注17> their loads insgroupsto get home and land with safety. For example, Len Deighton, Goodbye Mickey Mouse: they bombed targets of opportunity.. shutting your eyes, toggling<注18> the bombload, gaining height, and getting the hell out. You dropped your bombs at the first opportunity, irrespective of where they landed. The phrase's new meaning is directly to target a tantalising<注19> opportunity that has arisen unexpectedly. Go get Saddam and his sons skulking<注20> in the southern suburbs of Baghdad. decapitate<注21> the regime.
Nicknames for deadly weapons and WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) make them sound less terrible. Cruise, Scud, Tiny Tim, Honest John, Bloodhound, Hound-dog, Davy Crockett, Exocet (French for flying-fish)<注22>. In the modern wars of words, explicit names can be used to terrify: bunker-buster<注23>, microwave bomb, Tomahawk cruise missile<注24>. Or to make sinister acronyms: Moab (massive ordnance air blast bomb)<注25>. moab is my washpot: over Edom<注26> will I cast out my Scud. There is a taboo on naming nuclear weapons rather than high explosives. Nancy Mitford: the French say they will soon have a Bomb. The euphemisms for nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent<注27> or, as the French put it, l'agent de dissuasion。?
Londoners euphemised the German flying bombs by ridiculing them as Doodlebugs<注28>. Panorama, on BBC television, revived the old euphemism by nicknaming the cruise missile as the Doomsday Doodlebug<注29>. Such a weapon, it was stated, has ten times the power of devastation as that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It can travel thousands of miles with remarkable accuracy. And it can be mass-produced. An American contributor, asked what effect such a weapon would have if dropped on London, won the rhubarb garland<注30> for euphemism: it would ruin someone's day.?
traction is the euphemism for canvassing for votes<注31> at the UN, among the U6 (undecided six) or the P5 (permanent five) members of the Security Council. An agent can be a taboo subject. Chemical warfare agent is a noxious<注32> poison. Surgical strikes<注33> can be far from precise. To take out a city is to blast it to destruction. To retreat is to retire to prepared positions.?
Euphemism is as old as war. Homer's dying heroes bite the dust<注34>. The leader of the Britons against the task force of invading Romans said: they create a desert and call it peace.<注35>Euphemism, from the Greek, means speaking politely? Examples are the Euxine, friendly to voyagers (ie, dangerous), and the Eumenides<注36>, the kindly ones a name which might please those grim spirits<注37>, imagined as winged-like bats and with snaky hair, and even pacify them. We create euphemisms to substitute a descriptive adjective for the name of something too alarming to be mentioned. Our ancestors were so frightened that they refused to utter the real name of the bear, and called him the brown one ?German Bar and English bear.
Punch Njab<注38> is the latest jargon of the war of words. It behoves us<注39> to listen carefully to the cluster bombs<注40> of language that explode around us. Behove is a very rare beast. Some say that it is extinct.
1. collateral：附带的，伴随的。
2. cluster:串，束，簇。
3. euphemism:委婉说法。
4.collateral damage:附带的损伤，此处为“平民伤亡”的委婉说法。
5. "shock and awe":“震慑”，美军对巴格达进行的最大规模轰炸的军事行动的名称。
6. dispel:驱散。
7. jargon: (同一职业集团或社会集团所使用因而在一般外人听来晦涩难懂的)行话，黑话。
8. sedate:使……镇静。
9. totalitarian:极权主义的。
10. liquidation:清洗。
11. infantry:步兵(部队)。
12. kit: [军](士兵武器以外的)装备。
13. subaltern: <英>陆军中尉。
14. galloping dispatch riders:快马飞驰的通讯员。
15. sinew-stiffening:鼓舞士气的，加强力量的。
16."a target of opportunity":美英联军在此次对伊拉克的作战中所谓的针对伊拉克高层的打击目标。
17. jettison: (故意不按指定目标)扔下()等。
18. toggle:用拨动式开关从飞机上投()。
19. tantalising:逗引的，惹弄的。
20. skulk：躲藏，隐伏。
21. decapitate:将……斩首。
22. Scud:飞毛腿导弹；tiny Tim:“小不点”导弹；Honest John:一种地对地战术火箭；bloodhound:“大猎犬”导弹；hound-dog:“”导弹；Davy Crockett:一种导弹名；exocet:飞鱼导弹。
23. bunker-buster:一种专门打击地堡的巨型。
24. Tomahawk cruise missile:战斧式巡航导弹。
25. moab:首字母缩写词，指重型空爆；ordnance:火炮。Moab又与《圣经-创世记》中Lot之子摩押的名字相同。
26. Edom:以东，《圣经》中雅各之兄；同时又是位于死海之南的一个古代王国的名称。政治家惯用一些牵强附会的典故来掩盖战争的残酷或非正义性。
27. deterrent:威慑。
28. Doodlebug:嗡嗡弹，指德国在第二次世界大战中使用的“V”型飞弹。
29. the Doomsday Doodlebug:末日嗡嗡弹。
30. rhubarb garland:由大黄制作的花环(指价值不高的荣誉)。
31. canvass for votes:拉选票。
32. noxious:有害的。
33. surgical strikes:［军］外科手术式打击(指迅速而准确的袭击，尤指空袭)。
34. bite the dust:“(战斗中)受伤倒下或死亡”的委婉说法。
35. Briton:布立吞人，(古代不列颠岛南部的凯尔特居民)；task force:［军］特遣部队，特混舰队。公元84年，入侵不列颠的罗马人与当地的凯尔特人之间爆发了Mons Graupius战役，当时的凯尔特人领袖Calgacus在战前说了这番话。这部分史实在古罗马历史学家塔西佗所著《历史》中有所记载。
36. Eumenides:［希神］欧墨尼得斯，即复仇三女神。
37. grim spirits:阴森的鬼神。
38. Punch 'n' jab:用拳猛击，这里指用重武器猛烈打击。
39. It behoves us:我们有必要(应当)。
40.cluster bomb:榴霰弹，子母弹。
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submitted at 2004-6-8 16:05:00
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