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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Now it means "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon":
https://www.foxnews.com/us/mosul-orb-us-silent-ufo-filmed-military-iraq

This may have to do with the 2022 creation of the Pentagon’s "All-domain
Anomaly Resolution Office," an expansion of the "Airborne Object
Identification and Management Group":
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3100053/dod-announces-the-establishment-of-the-all-domain-anomaly-resolution-office/

There's the signpost up ahead....

JL

On Sun, Apr 16, 2023 at 12:23 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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."
>


-- 
"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