my personal woty

[Dennis Baron]

Speaking of truthiness, when NCTE gave Jon Stewart the George Orwell  
Award for Excellence in Analyzing public discourse, he totally  
ignored us, so whatever you think of truthiness, at least Stephen  
Colbert acknowledged the gesture. My own candidate for WOTY for the  
past 2 years running has been roadside bomb, a suggestion that no one  
picks up on (not found in dictionaries, btw). See the following for  
the google count (as of mid-December) and the Lexis/Nexis count for  
Nov-Dec.:

Roadside Bomb: The Word of the Year for 2005

by Dennis Baron

The word of the year for 2005 – actually a phrase –  is roadside  
bomb. It was my choice for word of the year for 2004, and in the  
absence of an exit strategy for the war in Iraq, it looks to be the  
word of the year for 2006 as well.

Although it’s not in any dictionary, roadside bomb is not a new  
phrase. It appears in a 1979 AP story about Basque terrorists, and  
roadside bombs were popular with insurgents in Lebanon and Bosnia.  
“Roadside bomb” may not be as old as the related “car bomb,” used in  
Northern Ireland in 1972, or “suicide bomber,” with a destructive  
history going back at least to 1941. Nor is it as popular on the  
Internet. Googling “roadside bomb” nets 1,010,000 hits, a three-fold  
jump since last year. But car bombs are stronger, at over 3 million,  
and suicide bombers lead the hit parade, with more than 3.74 million  
served.

But unlike car bomb and suicide bomber, roadside bomb has a ring to  
it that is both catchy and paradoxical. It combines the peaceful  
image of the roadside café, the roadside stand, and the roadside rest  
with the element of surprise provided by the explosion that typically  
follows. And the explosion does follow: roadside bombs have become  
the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents.

Like other wars, the war in Iraq affects not just the lives of  
individuals and the course of history, it also changes the language  
landscape. The two World Wars embedded terms like “Kilroy,” and  
“radar” into English, not to mention catch phrases like “making the  
world safe for democracy” and “peace in our time.” The first Gulf War  
brought Saddam Hussein’s warning that American invaders would face  
“the mother of all battles,” which proved a dud. But the phrase lived  
on.

The second Gulf War also started with a slogan, “shock and awe,”  
which backfired when the peace in Iraq proved deadlier than the war  
it followed. GW II did bring “regime change” to Iraq – though we’re  
still waiting to see what the regime will change into. “Spider hole,”  
a vintage term from WW II, popped up briefly when Saddam Hussein was  
found hiding in one, then faded away. But “weapons of mass  
destruction,” a phrase that has proved more visible than the weapons  
it refers to, is a keeper.

Roadside bombs deserve special recognition this year because in a  
relatively short time they have carved out a deep niche – actually a  
scar – in our lexicon.  Roadside bombs explode regularly in the news  
as well as by the roadside.  According to Lexis/Nexis, roadside bombs  
made the papers on twenty-six of the past thirty days, and it  
wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a roadside bomb on today’s front page.

It’s the pervasive roadside bombs, car bombs, and suicide bombers,  
not WMD’s, that are actually killing people.  According to the  
Washington Post, they’re now causing half the American deaths in  
Iraq.  The American military, which brought us “snafu” – situation  
normal, all f***ed up – lumps these weapons of limited destruction  
under the umbrella acronym IED, for “improvised explosive device.”   
IED’s in turn lead to “hillbilly armor,” an improvised defensive  
device – bits of scrap metal and ballistic glass – used by soldiers  
to “uparmor” their trucks. Although Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld  
clearly wants an army that doesn’t complain about snafus and  
unprotected humvees, he admitted to the army that he has that even  
real armor can’t stand up to roadside bombs.

It would be wonderful if roadside bombs proved as evanescent as the  
weapons of mass destruction they replaced.  But with our troops  
embedded in Iraq for the foreseeable future, “roadside bomb” is  
assured not just a continuing place in the headlines, but also a  
permanent place in the dictionary.