I will be the first to admit it. My grammar and spelling have suffered a shamefull decline through sloth and haste. But, I must comment on a casualty of the current conflict. Can somebody explain what or who came up with this "imbedded" business? I thought journalists were attached,assigned or accredited. Are they reporters or concrete tank traps?And now they report on pilots making " package deliveries downtown." I thought pilots made sorties. Is this the military or UPS? I hope I haven't "disrespected" anybody with this observation <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

My thinking is that saying reporters are "imbedded" and pilots are making "package deliveries downtown" is basically just a marketing ploy. It gives the news a fresh, hip sound to attract the same mindless, young drones who don't get your disrespected joke. To take the joke to the next level I was going to reply in Ebonics, but I don't have a clue how to translate it into a written language. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Ed

Let's see - when I think of a great "package" for a "journalist" that I'd like to see "delivered" for a weekend "imbedded" "downtown," Laurie Dhue from Fox News comes to mind. Hope I haven't "disrespected" her fiance too much, or "brutaliated" the limits of good taste at ATC. Regards, Keys

certainly I thought it was embedded not imbedded. The reporters are embedded as opposed to at-large in that they are assigned to and managed by the military groups that they are protected by. The image presented to the audience is that there is a reporter living in a normal operating military group watching what is happening and thereby getting a more immediate if not accurate picture of what is going on.
[SOAP-BOX]
Truth is the military has avoided having to worry about reporters wandering about the countryside capturing pictures that are unpopular with the military or getting shot because they weren't protected. What we really have is a few groups of military personal who encircle the reporter and protect them while the intelligence officer of the group tells the report what they are allowed to capture and transmit back home. This manipulation of the "free-press" is interesting only to the extent that it satisfies the short attention spans of the watchers of american telivision, and the astonishing dichotomy between the warriness of the iraqi minders of the reporters like Peter Arnet and the total faith we have in the intentions of the minders of the embedded reporters.
[SOAP-BOX]

Actually, my Webster's says imbedded has the same meaning as embedded, and I find both spellings used by learned writers across the web. As for my joke - the second definition of embedded is "to lay in, as in bed." As for the reporters - they'll write their books about the truth (I hope) of what they have seen after they get back home. Godspeed to them all. Regards, Keys

Just goes to show how "brutaliated" our spelling has become. <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

John

Something that I noticed in my stint in the military, and that I am now noticing more and more often in civilian life:

the use of the word "orientate".

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

The one that rubs me is taking the word attrition, and creating the verb "attrit." I was skeptical it was a real word until I looked it up: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=attrit