[Ads-l] UAP - unidentified aerial phenomena (or phenomenon)

[Jonathan Lighter]

To judge from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's discussion with Jake Tapper on
CNN's "State of the Union" today, there's a strong connotational difference
between "UAP" and "UFO."

"UFO" implies "might well be from outer space." "UAP" implies "might well
be Russian or Chinese." Gillibrand cited 171 cases reviewed by DoD in the
past two years that have resisted specialist analysis.

She referred to the need to know "what these aircraft are" and whether
we're being spied on "by our adversaries."

Yet whether UFO or UAP, the "unidentified" remain unidentified.

JL

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 4:39 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Not in my existing thread. I must have trashed it somehow.
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:39 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Garson provided that cite info in the original thread in October:
>>
>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2022-October/162459.html
>>
>> Also included in my February Twitter thread (with a hat tip to Garson):
>>
>> https://twitter.com/bgzimmer/status/1626924403622543362
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:31 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Update: the 1958 "UAP" is  from Avram Davidson's story, "The Grantha
>> > Sighting," in the April, 1958, ish of _Fantasy and Science Fiction_, p.
>> 58:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v014n04_1958-04_PDF/page/n47/mode/2up?q=sightings
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 10:33 AM Jonathan Lighter <
>> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Thanks, Garson.  And many thanks for ID'ing the month and page.
>> > >
>> > > I was a saucer buff from 1965 to the late '70s and read all I could
>> find
>> > > on the subject that wasn't totally screwball. I must confess, though,
>> > that
>> > > when the Navy used "UAP" when it released UFO footage in 2017, the
>> acro
>> > > seemed novel.
>> > >
>> > > Of course, "aerial phenomenon" is a more objective description than
>> > > "flying object."
>> > >
>> > > In my day, the acronym was so rarely employed that it never fully
>> > > registered on me. Rereading some of the exx. above, I'm sure I'd have
>> > > thought it no more than a marginal eccentricity. It doesn't seem to
>> > appear,
>> > > for example, in Ron Story's extensive _UFO Encyclopedia_ (1980).
>> > >
>> > > It seems likely that Davidson (a prominent sf writer) was the
>> originator.
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org