E for Effort (1940)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Tue, 4 May 2004 22:44:11 -0400,    sagehen
<sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> writes:

>    I remember the blue banner
>  with the script E surrounded by laurel leaves in gold that was the emblem
>  of this award.  I remember being unsure whether it was E for Effort or E
>  for Excellence. It may have been the War Production Board that made the
>  award.  In those days we didn't euphemize military stuff so much.  We had a
>  War Department, not a Defense Department, for example.

Wrong about "euphemize military stuff".  During World War II the word
"Defense" was used quite commonly in contexts where "War" or "Military" would also
have fit.
Nor was this usage limited to the United States.

This usage of "Defense" is a 20th Century innovation.  George Washington
during his Presidency established a "War Department" (or "Department of War", both
terms were used, I think the latter was the official one) headed by a
"Secretary of War".  John Adams established the "Department of the Navy".  Both
Departments remained in separate existence until they were merged in 1947.  Why the
result of the merger was called "Department of Defense" instead of say
"Department of the Military" or "Department of the Armed Forces" I don't know, but I
speculate it was, well, knee-jerk, as people in 1947 were so used to using
the word "Defense" that they didn't think about it when naming the new
department.  If a usage gets too habitual it is no longer a euphemism, e.g. "toilet" is
a one-time euphemism for some term now forgotten.

You will frequently hear the Israeli Army (actually the entire Israel armed
forces) referred to as the "Israeli Defense Forces".  This is a translation of
the Hebrew "Zve Haganah l'Yisrael", literally "force defense for Israel",
usually referred to by the acronym "ZAHAL".  You can call it a euphemism but you
can't blame it on World War II or anything postwar.  The Zahal was formed in
1948 mostly from an existing underground organization known as "Haganah"
("Defense") which has been formed under that name back in 1920.

        - James A. Landau