Okay, it's been a while since I've gone off on a good linguistic rant, so I guess it's time.
The subject for today is drones. Not the ants that do the work around the hill while the queen makes more ants, and not a long and monotonous sound, but machines that fly around and watch things or shoot missiles.
Because the word drone is too simple for use in budget documents and obfuscatory Congressional testimony, we tend to call them unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs (because you have to have a good acronym).
But even that is too simple for some people, who would prefer to call them uninhabited combat aerial vehicles, or UCAVs.
Really? Uninhabited?
An RQ-4 GLOBAL HAWK is unmanned ...
But I guess I should be quiet, because sooner or later some wag will want to be very PC and insist that they are unpersonned. And that would be unnecessary ... and positively uncanny.
Have a good day. And remember ... it's unmanned, not uninhabited. So there.
Come back tomorrow for the naming of the Left Cheek Ass Clown for September.
Bilbo
* As far as we know.
5 comments:
That's an example of unnecessary terminology!
A F-18 is uninhabited too. The pilot doesn't LIVE in it!
In the Battle of Britain they called them buzz bombs.
You had me at "good linguistic rant". You make an excellent point. If there weren't so many major ass clowns, more of these minor ass clowns would be getting the negative attention they deserve. Look forward to learning who tomorrow's dis-honoree will be!
From the dictionary - 3. "a person who lives on the labor of others; parasitic loafer."
CONGRESS!!
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