Every international crisis throws up its own lexicon, from the chummy phrasings and song-lines of the World War II to the cynical euphemisms of "collateral damage" or "ethnic cleansing."
These times are no different. Since the attacks, a number of words have began to stand out. (Interestingly, the events were so huge that they do not yet have an easy shorthand title: No one has tried to coin Twintowergate, or even offered a basic Black Tuesday; most Americans refer to it as "that Tuesday," or simply by the date itself: Sept. 11, 2001.)
* Armageddon, apocalypse: Apparently interchangeable terms normally used to denote the end of the world. Technically, Armageddon actually means the battle between good and evil which will accompany the end of the world, and apocalypse means a vision of that battle.
* Asymmetric (or asymmetrical) warfare: Previously used by military tacticians to mean, mainly, the actions of terrorist groups against superpowers; but now means also attempts to fight back.
* Ground zero: The point of impact of a conventional missile or the point of detonation of an atomic device. Ground zero in this case is used to mean the rubble at the bases of where the twin towers stood.
* Collateral damage: Ironically, the term coined during the Gulf War to mean civilian casualties is now being used in its literal sense; numerous articles have used the phrase to denote the concomitant damage to the economy through the effect on shares, airlines, jobs and so on.
* Folks: President George Bush's first gaffe of the crisis, since offered repeatedly by critics as evidence of a lack of sophistication. He used it on the first day when he spoke of his desire to "hunt down and find these folks ..." and compounded the hoedown image by speaking of "tinhorn terrorists.
* Operation Infinite Justice: Short-lived term to denote the US military plan to defeat bin Laden and terrorism. The name has now been dropped because of offensive connotations: "infinite justice" is something which, to Islam, can only be meted out by Allah.
* Crusade: What President Bush announced on Tuesday. The White House apologized for the term the next day, given that the crusades brought slaughter to thousands of innocent Arabs and Jews.
* Jihad: Technically, this means the struggle to do good, referring to a battle with the conscience over the right course of action at any point in life, menial or significant. It only came to be associated with the idea of a 'holy war' after the crusades.
* War: What we are either at, or not. "Whatever the technical and legal issues about a declaration of war," said Tony Blair last week, "the fact is that we are at war with terrorism."
The fact is we have not been officially at war since 1945. War was never declared over the Falklands, or between the US and Vietnam.
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