[Ads-l] Antedating of "Weapon of Mass Destruction"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Vrtually the dominant current nuance:

1934 _Daily Dispatch_ (Moline, Ill.) (Sept .1) 10 [Newspapers.com]: The
argument followed is that regardless of international treaties there is no
safeguard against the two most offensive weapons of mass destruction,
airplanes and poison gas.

1934 was a seminal year:

1934 _The Sun_ (Baltimore) (Sept. 11) 12 [Newspapers.com]: The scientists
no less than the munitions makers seem to be determined to make our outlook
on life as happy as it can be.  Or is it possible that the development of
lethal weapons "for the mass destruction of enemy armies as well as
noncombatant civilian populations" is not as provocative of pleasant
thoughts as some of these people appear to believe?


JL

On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 8:25 AM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

>
> It's certainly not in the same sense as the use to refer to nukes, bugs,
> and gas, but it does fit into the wider sense of the term. Lots of things
> are referred rhetorically as WMD: landmines, handguns, essentially anything
> that statistically kills a lot of people. This and other pre-1945 citations
> show that the general sense was in place before the specific one.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Bill Mullins" <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Sunday, June 4, 2023 8:34pm
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Weapon of Mass Destruction"
>
>
>
> I don't think I would count this. The general definition (and the OED one)
> of WMD is that class of weapons, specifically including atomic/nuclear,
> biological, and chemical weapons, that indiscriminately target masses of
> people. It looks to me, from context, that the cite below only refers to
> armaments in general. I think that some WW2 uses of the phrase include mass
> aerial bombardment, but the modern usage does not.
>
> (It's not clear that the OED's 1937 cite should be included, either.)
>
> > 1934 _Cincinnati Enquirer_ 16 Oct. 4/2 (Newspapers.com) It may be that
> something effective
> > can be done to regulate the international traffic in arms, and thus to
> modify the evils of an
> > unrestricted trade in the weapons of mass destruction.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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