[WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

[George Herbert]

On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A customary part of [[military terminology]] is the usage and promotion of military
> terms to frame political disputes in the language of a particular POV, or else to frame
> indecent acts of violence in sterile and quasi-scientific language. "Liquidation" and
> "pacification" are probably the most canonical examples; from WWII and the Vietnam War,
> respectively. The Rumsfeldian usage of the term "humane" also comes to mind.
>
> Current issues, include the inclusion of the term "Operation Just Desserts" in the
> [[2006 Israeli-attacks on Lebanon]] article in the lede. Likewise the article
> [[Operation Summer Rains]] also a military, hence POV nomenclature and hence needs
> renaming, though I cannot myself determine what to call it.
> Is it an "incursion" (ie. "a limited incursion into the country of Congress") or an
> "invasion", a "retaliation" or a "retribution" etc.

Is it your assertion that WP should not use the miliary operation
names for describing events?

It's one thing to state that military terminology tends to gloss over
unsightly details like shooting and killing people, which is true.

It's quite another to assert that military operation  names are
unencyclopedic or so POV that they should not be used in the WP.  The
operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
(Desert Storm, for example).

It is possible to take Robin Lakoff too seriously.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com