Colleagues display ‘Shock & Awe’
by henrycopelandThursday, March 20th, 2003
Ben Sullivan is a keen observer of office sociology. He e-mails: “Have you noticed, the nomenclature of Gulf War 2 is starting to emerge. Where GW1 had ‘Mother of all,’ and ’sorties,’ in GW2 ‘Shock and awe,’ and ‘Coalition of the Willing’ are early favorites. As in, ‘I’m putting together a Coalition of the Willing for lunch today’ or ‘Mike’s Powerpoint presentation left us in Shock & Awe.’”
March 21st, 2003 at Mar 21, 03 | 5:43 pm
It’s easy to be glib about such matters.
But when you think about it, “We will fight on the beaches” from Winston Churchill became kinda cliche too.
And that was some of the best stuff written in living memory…
Us Cambridge-dwellers like to mock our country’s military might. Makes us seem more clever & sexy at cocktail aprties, you know?
But at the end of the day, we’re ARE SO RELIEVED to have it.
Don’t get me started about the smug, moral bankruptcy of the intellegensia….
March 22nd, 2003 at Mar 22, 03 | 4:14 am
These terms are driving me crazy! It’s like once the press here’s a buzz word, they pick it up and incorporate it into every sentence. Tom Brokaw asked one reporter today what the bombing was like and she said “awesome and shocking”. I was like, damn, don’t you have anything original to say?
March 26th, 2003 at Mar 26, 03 | 2:07 pm
The one that’s sticking in my craw these days is “stiff resistance.” Kinda reminds me of the slogan of the old New Wave record label Stiff Records: “If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a f***.”