The Future of Doubletalk

The Washington Post, its tongue in cheek, continued its forlorn-hope battle to keep the American tongue in check. Ignoring, for the moment, its favorite enemies (the chairborne Washington officials who "activate" plans and "implement directives") the Post asked itself last week: what is World War II doing to the language? Partially reassured by the fact that many of World War I's mess-hall words (chow, slum, goldfish, corned willie) disappeared under the influence of home cooking, the Post tried to hope for the best: "Probably G.I. will be with us. ...

Briefing is rather handy; so is sweating it out. But surely not Roger. . . ."

What really upset the Post's editorialist was an earful from his niece in the Waves: "She hits the deck at 0600, goes aboard the Navy Building at 0800, mounts the ladder to the third deck and reports to the skipper. ... So far as we can make out her office is called for short Comcincsnafbabu. ... All in all, she finds the Navy pretty rugged. When she quits, or we should say is returned to inactive duty, we're afraid she'll bring along a lot of that naval doubletalk. We really don't want any. An expert in naval jargon advises us that we should threaten, if she does, to take her down to the Potomac and give her the Deep Six."

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