Bob Yates writes: > The events of the past week provide all kinds of interesting examples of how > important it is to use the right words. > > I just saw Bush in a joint interview with Chirac, President of France. Chirac said > clearly that he would not use the word "war" to describe the conflict we are now > in. It is interesting that Bush didn't use it either. Why might some people avoid > the term war? > > The best example of word choice is crusade. Apparently, Bush recently talked about > the need for a "crusade" against those how carried out the events of September 11. > Almost immediately Muslim countries in the Middle East reacted against that > formulation. If I were teaching the right course, I might want to bring up whether > "crusade" is the appropriate word to describe the struggle we are in. What is its > original meaning? I'm not sure that Bush would have known the original meaning , but it comes from an Old French word that, I believe, means "to bear the cross." I suppose it has more to do with carrying the cross to the holy land than with any more modern metaphorical interpretation of "bearing the cross." It's easy to see why Muslims would object more to a crusade than to a war. Paul E. Doniger To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/