Yes sarcasm the judicious employment of a biting wit. Bet you didn’t know that it also has a military origin.
The word is based on the Greek sarkasmos which means “flesh-tearing”. It was used in reference to a particularly brutal attack made on the battle field that involved wild hacking and slashing that tore and shredded the enemies flesh.
By the late 16th century the word shows up in English meaning a brutal and withering verbal attack.
Rather than just dig into the definition we thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A on this particular word.
A blockade is an effort to cut off supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally.
Yes, but only if it is actually effective and the rights of neutrals are respected.
Simply put, efforts to get through a blockade to get supplies in or other things out.
It used to be but now it is possible to use aircraft to effect a blockade. In modern terms it is more about the results than the methods.
Yes, during the American Revolution the British Navy was able to effectively cut off the American Colonies from outside trade. Some supplies did manage to slip through, thankfully.
Also during the War of 1812 by the British again. This one proved a little less effective due to the fledgling US Navy.
Oh yeah.
During the Mexican-American War (1846-48) the US instituted a blockade of the Mexican ports on the Pacific and Gulf Coast.
During the American Civil War (1861-65) the US set up a blockade of the Confederate States of America (the legality of this was often question by the European powers due to the fact that the Confederacy was never recognized as an actual nation.)
The Spanish-American War in 1898 saw the US blockading Puerto Rico and Cuba.
A blockade of Japan during WWII (1944-1945). Wait a second. They were only blockaded for one year? Technically yes as a legal blockade could not be commenced against Japan until the US had undisputed control fo the area.
Technically the US was also involved in an air blockade (No Fly Zone) against Iraq (1991-2003) and was part of the NATO force that blockaded Yugoslavia (1993-1996)
Did I miss any?
The first thing comes to mind is a pet name for a little kid. That is how I always heard it and when I hear it I think, “Awwww…” So that is what I thought it was.
It turns out that doodlebug has been around the American vernacular for a very long time but came to more prominence during WWII. American soldiers stationed in the UK during the war gave the nickname to the German V1 bombs that were being hurled against the British.
Now you may think that based on the word doodle, or “to play about”, that the name was given based on the sometimes erratic patterns the bombs would take to their targets. But no. See the name doodlebug was also given to a type of mini race car that was popular in the 1930’s. As it turns out the V1 in flight sounded a lot like the straight-through exhaust system of the mini-cars. So the name stuck.
In the US Army a “shavetail” is a new officer, usually a 2nd Lieutenant, who is fresh out of OCS (Officer Candidate School). Their distinctive short haircuts set them a prat from the more experienced officers. The term has come to be used to mean anyone who is inexperienced with their jobs.
It goes back to the days when the Army used pack animals, such as mules, to haul supplies. New animals would require some breaking in to be of much use, one that was accomplished the handlers would shave their tails. This let everyone know that they were new and set them apart from their more seasoned compatriots.
Basically, calling some a shavetail means use caution as they are new on the job.
On Wednesdays we are going to branch out a bit from word origins and talk about some of the unique words that have entered our language. Still with a history and military bent mind you.
Politics in America has always been divisive, it is the nature of our beast. Never though was it more divisive then leading up to the Civil War. in 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican. The Republican Party was fairly young at this point ans was made up of the remnants of several other parties that had come and gone. Free Soilers, Whigs, Know Nothings, etc. The Democratic Party was older and more established at the time of the Civil War, but it was going through some issues. Slavery being one of them.
Southern Democrats, of course believed that slavery was a right and it fought for it. Northern Democrats were a little shaky on the subject and in the lead up to the 1860 election a rift formed in the party. This lead to two conventions and two Democrat nominees for the presidency. (And then some.) The Democrats lost the election and had the party stayed together, that may not have happened.
As the Southern States seceded the great majority of the Democrat Party went with them, but not all of them. Many Northern Democrats supported the cause of the South and became very vocal against the war. These anti-war democrats became known as Copperheads which are known as sneaks and having the ability to strike without warning.
For most of the war they proved a thorn in the side of President Lincoln. One of the leaders of the movement Clement Vallandigham, a member of the House from Ohio, became so outspoken that Lincoln deported him to the Confederacy.
The Copperhead movement lost steam after the 1864 fall of Atlanta. This event pretty much signaled that the war was moving into its final stages. Though their overall effectiveness was marginal. However they did take a stand against the regimes crack down on civil liberties. Other than that their main focus was the same as all political parties, winning elections and beating their rivals.
How many of you knew that the term sideburns, those wonderful tufts of hair that cuddle the side of a dapper mans face, was born from a military origin? Well, kind of at least. See they were named for the guy above.
Union Civil War General Ambrose Burnside. A man of unquestionable talented facial hair. The problem was that he did have what one would call military talent. He was not a great general and a lot of soldiers died because of that. Prior to the 1864 Battle of the Crater outside of Peteresburg Virginia his style of facial hair was already known as having “burnsides”, a popular style at the time of the war. After the battle though, just one in a long series of catastrophes by his hand, they started calling the whiskers sideburns in honor of the general, who always got things “the wrong way around”.
The cleaning agent that we use today actually was named for the temple of Ammon at Siwa in the Libyan desert. The temple was visited by thousands of pilgrims over the years, each left their camels tied up in the near vicinity. Over the course of centuries the sand soaked up thousands of gallons of camel urine.
In 106 BC the Romans took over the site and turned it into a garrison. Soldiers digging new foundations came across large, foul smelling crystals in the ground. They were shipped back to Rome for study. Eventually a use was found for the cleaning power of the crystals, now dubbed ammonia. Eventually they found their way into daily Roman life for things such as laundry and oral hygiene. (Don’t think about it too much.)
Slang for British Soldier
The first known use of Tommy in reference to the British soldier was back in 1743. It came from the fact that there were a lot of young British men named Tommy Atkins, so it was a common name. Later in 1815 the army rolled out new forms and pay books where all the example pages were filled out with the name Tommy Atkinson. After that Tommy just sort of stuck for any British soldier.
Omen or Portent, often bad
Don’t come all in here like the harbinger of doom!
Dating as far back as the 14th century, the harbinger was an army officer sent out in front of the army to arrange for places for the troops to sleep. At the time such lodgings were called “harbor”. Often the arrival of the harbinger would lead to a panic amongst the citizenry because the army was not far behind and that meant taxes would be collected and a ton of pillaging would be occurring. Hence the generally negative aspects of something be a harbinger.
There can still be a positive aspect to the term such as a “harbinger of spring, but the gloom and doom usually wins in the end!