Chrysti The Wordsmith: Fighting Words

Greetings I'm Christie the wordsmith countless words have been written about war William T Sherman opined that war is hell. German dramatist Baer told Brecht wrote that war is like love it always finds a way. The first woman elected to Congress in 1916 Jeannette Rankin wrote you can no more win war than you can win an earthquake. Well these are open yards. What is fact is that war is linguistically productive. Every war fought on or from this country has inspired words phrases abbreviations and acronyms both familiar and useful to most Americans. Some we still consider military or battle specific are a wall. Napalm radar Doughboy and kamikaze. There are stockpiles of words and expressions originally coined during past combat's some of which have since been decommissioned and are now live in the civilian life such as flash in the pan hit the panic button honcho and hold down the fort and who can deny the usefulness of

Blockbuster to drum up open arms armed to the teeth basket case and pipe down. All these have been inspired by weaponry warfare and armed conflict. If you're interested in this topic I recommend the book Fighting words by lexicographer Christine AMOR AMOR flushes out the stories behind all the expressions mentioned today find the title on the bibliography page of my website wordsmith radio org Christie the wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.