Emily in San Diego, California, wonders about the phrase to dog, meaning “to close and secure” as in to dog a door. In a nautical context, the phrase dog the hatches means to secure them with a bolt or handle designed for that purpose. This phrase...
Evan from Dallas, Texas, asks whether decimate should only mean destroying one-tenth of something or whether it can mean generally destroying it. The word goes back to a Roman military punishment in which one in ten mutinous soldiers was killed, but...
low speed adj.— «“Roger that,” said Young, clutching his soggy worksheet. “You guys are high speed.” High speed is a military term of endearment. Low speed, conversely, denotes anything uncool, such as Gussman’s older...
no duff other.— «L/Cpl Steven Jones, 25—an Army passenger on the plane—yelled, “No duff, no duff, we are on fire, we are on fire,” before communication was lost. “No duff” is a military term used to indicate a real emergency instead of a...
dog robber n.— «Another assignment was to be a “dog robber” which was a military term for a general aide to a superior officer who could be called upon to do a multitude of things.» —“Columnist salutes World War II veterans for...
Bent Spear n.— «At least five U.S. Air Force commanders are facing criminal charges for allowing armed nuclear cruise missiles to be flown across America.…The incident sparked a so-called “Bent Spear” nuclear alert, one...
