Black widow

[Jonathan Lighter]

A few years ago there was the "Black Widow" killer. She'd knocked off a
couple of hubbies and went to the slams.

JL


On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 3:48 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Black widow
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>
> I was expecting it much earlier, and possibly it's been around for awhile.
> But there is now a migrated term from the Russian Chechen war. Russian
> military have been referring to female suicide bombers as "black widows"
> since the early 1980 (both in Afghanistan and Chechnya). These are usually
> fairly young childless widows of fallen Islamic fighters. There might be
> sone variations, but the militants have some odd moral restrictions who may
> or may not become a martyr in this fashion. For example, they may have a
> proscription against using children, but they might use someone who would
> be viewed by Western standards as a child. I don't know the full set of
> restrictions, but it's really beside the point. I suspect, there has been
> some period fiction that's adapted the term -- I've seen it in Russian
> literature since the late 1980s and in film since about 1993. I haven't
> search for any appearances in English yet, but wanted to flag this as
> something to be aware of.
>
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/sochi/2014/01/20/russia-security-looking-for-black-widows-possible-threat-sochi-games/4659329/
>
> VS-)
>
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