The war in Ukraine has decimated a once feared Russian brigade

washingtonpost.com

6 pointseitland3 comments

Does anyone know if the US military has a rationale for their seemingly arbitrary exercises in vocabulary mutation?

Eg Overmatch, which according to the Wikipedia page "is a concept in modern military thinking", I would argue it would've been entirely familiar to G. Julius Caesar as dominātus, cognate to "Domination". Undoubtedly exactly the same concept existed (albeit impressed into clay) in sumerian military thinking.

I have heard Icelandic does the same, but much more.

I actually think it is good to replace old, weird words with newer, better and more precise ones. As long as the new ones are better that is.

I agree with the sentiment, but in this case I find overmatch a new, weird word that is no more precise than dominate, and hence not better.

(Upon reflection, maybe it is more precise in that it flags "this is a specifically US military-industrial term of art"?)

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