USAF Jargon

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Mark A. Mandel
> Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 3:20 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: USAF Jargon
>
>
> Dave Wilton's small list included this:
>
>         >>>
> "BOGSAT", jocular acronym, "bunch of guys sitting around a table", as in
> "that research project sounded very good, but it was only a BOGSAT"
>         <<<
>
> Is this likely to be also meant as a pun on military jargon terms like
> "intelsat", where the final "-sat" means "satellite"?
>
>   "What's the basis for these estimates?"
>   "BOGSAT, sir."
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel

It certainly is evocative of "Intelsat," but that's not a military acronym
that I'm aware of. "Intelsat" is a commercial satellite system. The military
intel terms tend to end in "-int," like "humint" (human intelligence),
"sigint" (signal intelligence), and "imint" (imagery intelligence).

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net