this is a great example of why I love reading James Taranto’s “Best of the Web Today”
Euphemizing the Enemy
A New York Times story on Gen. David Petraeus’s proposed promotion to head of Central Command contains this linguistic howler:[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said he and President Bush settled on General Petraeus for the post because his counterinsurgency experience in Iraq made him best suited to oversee American operations across a region where the United States is engaged in “asymmetric” warfare, a euphemism for battling militants and nonuniformed combatants.
The Times editors apparently can’t tell the difference between jargon (technical language) and euphemism (using an inoffensive term to refer to something disagreeable). Here’s an example:• Plain English: He died.
• Jargon: His metabolic functions ceased.
• Euphemism: He went to a better place.“Asymmetric warfare” is jargon. How funny that the Times misidentifies it as euphemism in the very same sentence in which it employs its own euphemism for the enemy–i.e., “militants and nonuniformed combatants” instead of terrorists.