"dirty war"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Maybe a further definition is needed for some occurrences of the phrase, something like "characterized by or requiring requiring ruthless methods":

  1970 Barry M. Goldwater _The Conscience of a Majority_ (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall) 2: It does not mean that we assume the role of policeman of the world, nor does it mean that we engage in every dirty little war that comes along.

  2004 Charles H. McPherson _Journey to Bedlam_ (N.p.: Xlibris) 1: On the inside, a dirty little war was being waged, pitting the forces of intellect, rationality, and hope against the evil forces of gloom, despair, and self-destruction.

  It may be an indication of the phrase's relative novelty" that I can find no exx. of "dirty (little) war"  either in UM's  Making of America or in ECCO.

  JL


"Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Baker, John"
Subject: Re: "dirty war"
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The antiwar song "Three-Five-Zero-Zero," from the Hair cast recording =
(1968), includes the repeated line "It's a dirty little war." It also =
includes the repeated line "Two hundred fifty-six Viet Cong captured," =
so it clearly does refer at least in part to the events in Indochina.
=20
=20
John Baker
=20

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Sat 11/11/2006 9:41 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "dirty war"



The Second Indochina War (as we historians call it) was often =
characterized by its opponents as a "dirty war." OED doesn't notice =
this now frequent collocation. This ex. is from Google Books; it's only =
a snippet and may or may not refer to Indochina.

1971 Mieczys=B3aw Maneli _War of the Vanquished_ (N.Y.: Harper) 98: =
They had been drawn into a dirty war.

Robert B. Asprey notes that Communists referred to French operations =
in the First Indochina War as "la sale guerre" (_War in the Shadows_ =
[Garden City: Doubleday, 1975], I, 98).

Though not literally a "war," Argentina experienced a period of =
extreme internal political repression between 1976 and 1983 which was =
termed "the Dirty War" in the news.

This nuance of "dirty" may belong with OED 2b "that stains the honour =
of the persons engaged; dishonourably sordid, mean, base, or corrupt; =
despicable," though I might fix it to say "dishonourably or =
outrageously..."

JL




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