Manipulating Meaning: The Military Name Game

“Manipulating Meaning: The Military Name Game” is an article that takes a brief look at the evolution of naming military operations, including recent controversial names of operations that have seemed to become more and more offensive.  This article was very interesting due to the information it provides on how the military began naming operations back in World War II after the Germans started the trend, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill set a basic framework for how to choose the names themselves.  Nowadays we are far removed from large-scale warfare, and the need for generating such nicknames has lost its significance.  That has paved the way for individuals to give operations names based on their personal preference, and usually they do so in order to help the public perception of the operation.  The example they give is the name decided on for America’s retaliation to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which we named our military response “Enduring Freedom”, which was meant to appeal to the average American’s sense of patriotism.