civilian

[Mircea Sauciuc]

When I was in the service 10 years ago, this was common lingo to refer
to "outsiders"/non-military personnel as civilians.  When going out in
town, we would even wear "civilian clothes".  It appears to me a way
to segregate the two very different groups of people.  And now it
seems to have caught-on to mainstream lingo.  But then again, a brief
search through HDAS indicates that this is quite common for two groups
to be segregated in this fashion, regardless of whether we speak of
military, bikers, or academicians for example.

On 2/14/07, David Bergdahl <dlbrgdhl at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       David Bergdahl <dlbrgdhl at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      civilian
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yesterday on an NPR news report on the recent violence in Lebanon I heard an
> unusual [to me] usage of the term "civilian," not as "non-military" but as
> "not a gov't official" and today's NY Times has the same usage.  In a page 3
> article by Michael Slackman, "Bombs Kill 3 in Lebanon on Eve of Slaying
> Anniversary" the third paragraph begins
>
> "It was the first such attack--directed at ordinary civilians, not public
> figures--since the end of Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990."
>
> My sense is that it's the inverse of the use of "assasinate" inasmuch as one
> would use the term assasinate for a "public figure" but not for an "ordinary
> civilian"; the military/civilian dichotomy seems to be missing but, then
> again, one interpretation of "civilian" is "inappropriate as a target in
> wartime" and that meaning is definitely retro!
>
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--
Best,
M.S.

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