[Ads-l] "double agent" = "[single] agent" ?

[Jonathan Lighter]

CNN refers to him as a "double agent" as well.

JL

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 3:19 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Inflation, like those medium-sized “colossal olives”.
>
> Checking the first few cites on Google, I find:
>
> an agent who pretends to act as a spy for one country or organization
> while in fact acting on behalf of an enemy.
>
> an employee of a secret intelligence service, whose primary purpose is to
> spy on a different target organization, but who, in fact, is a member of
> the target organization
>
> a spy pretending to serve one government while actually serving another
>
> ...but also this more complicated one, requiring the involvement of three
> different countries/governments:
>
> a person employed by a government to discover secret information about
> enemy countries, but who is really working for one of these enemy countries
> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/double-agent
>
> Still, none that conform to Maddow’s use.
>
> LH
>
>
>
> > On Mar 16, 2018, at 2:19 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > Two nights ago, the usually articulate and precise Rachel Maddow several
> times referred to Russians accused or convicted of espionage on behalf of
> Britain or the US, and expelled or executed, as "double agents."
> >
> > But aren't they simply "agents"?
> >
> > I've always understood a double agent to be an individual who pretends
> to be spying on country X for the benefit of country Y but is actually
> betraying country Y to country X --like the character Dominika in Jason
> Matthew's terrific espionage novel _Red Sparrow_ (don't bother with the
> movie!). That is, a spy who has been found out and "turned."
> >
> > OED's definition of "double agent" I find confusing: "a spy who works on
> behalf of mutually hostile countries, usually with actual allegiance only
> to one."
> >
> > --Charlie
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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