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[Dec. 17th, 2007|02:05 pm] |
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Advertising vocabularies differ depending on what's being sold. A sports car doesn't get the same write-up as a family saloon, and a laptop computer isn't described in the same high-tech language as an iPod. But there are some words which have crossed genres, and now seem to be applied with blind enthusiasm in the most unlikely places.
My current favourite is tactical.
You'll find it defined on Answers.com in various ways, but they quote the current U.S. Military Dictionary, which for this LJ entry seems more appropriate than most.tactical, adj.
Designed or implemented so as to gain a temporary limited advantage: short-range.
1. of, relating to, or constituting actions carefully planned to gain a specific military end.
2. (of bombing or weapons) done or for use in immediate support of military or naval operations. Often contrasted with strategic. This once-military-only term has since moved, via business, into more-or-less everyday use, but it's slipped its leash and like an unruly dog, is leaving traces of its passage in places where it shouldn't be allowed to go. (Mind your feet.)
There are a lot of websites which sell military, paramilitary and pseudomilitary paraphernalia. A lot of it is solidly practical: no matter how my-country-right-or-wrong patriotic they might be, everyone in the armed services is aware, sometimes uncomfortably so (such as when, just after takeoff, only 300 feet up and thus too low to bale out of a non-ejector-seat aircraft, the engine makes a small apologetic noise you've never heard before and don't want to hear again any time soon) that their ship, tank, plane, uniform, boots and weapon have all been build down to a budget by the lowest bidder. Small wonder they like to augment at least their personal equipment with something apparently better than issue kit.
Some of those non-issue items are described on websites that are both serious and sensible; others seem to be little more than a stage for testosterone-fuelled macho posturing. The level of aggression in the way items are described is a fair way to judge, though sometimes even the sensible sites get so over-excited they need a cold shower and a lie-down.
One word both sorts of site fling around with wild abandon is tactical, and even those who are a lot closer to "tactical reality" have noticed how silly things are getting. Tactical knives, tactical torches (flashlights), tactical pens (yes, really) tactical equipment webbing, tactical vests (multi-pocket military rather than Monty Python string). All very well, I suppose - but when you find the word being applied to the other sort of vest, as well as socks and underpants (Google for "tactical underwear" - you will find it) you do start to wonder whether the copy-writers need to be beaten around the head with a good military dictionary. The trouble with buzzwords is that they eventually become as annoying as any other buzz, be it feedback, mosquito or mechanical flaw, and are either ignored, swatted or fixed so that it can't be heard.
Of course, there are always those boxer-shorts with a little pocket for condoms, but though wearing such undies might provide "a temporary limited advantage at short range", I don't think tactical is quite the word for any subsequent encounter. And if it is, I don't want to know the details, thank you very much. "Fix bayonets..." "Present arms..." Oh dear oh dear.
The real problem with "tactical garments" isn't that the word (military in origin, remember) is misplaced when all this kit is worn by civilian wannabes. It's that with obesity being the problem it is, the civilians are frequently sometimes more, let's say circumferentially enhanced, than would be tolerated in the services. That's why I think military-style clothing made available to the civilian market shouldn't be listed as "tactical" after about size XL.
We're looking at the bigger picture here, so let's call them strategic - and in cases where "waistline" is more like "equator" we could even go as far as global.
Truth in advertising? I wait with bated breath. |
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![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/27638673/967114) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dd_b
2007-12-17 03:15 pm (UTC)
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Hey, fat guys sometimes need a limited short-term advantage too! In fact they may need it more than others.
And some of us fat guys are already short and have short ranges[1] and need all the advantages we can get.
[1] Some of us use gas or electric cookers.
A very popular phrase in my place of work (UK-based IT) is Tactical Solution , which translates to, "We have had a non-functioning pile of rubbish delivered to us by the developers so we will bodge together a semi-working system from the parts we can get working". I like the British Army adjective for non-issue kit, which is Gucci kit, which gives the appropriate implication of expense with the possibility of poor utility.
AT leats you haven't mentioned the laser-sharpened entrenching tool... Yes, I once saw a PET that was described as being "laser-sharpened, to be more effective as a close-quarter improvised weapon" (what's so improvised with something you bought specifically for the task, I do not know).
It might be bought "laser-sharpened" (which seems in any case to be just one more marketing puff) but by golly it's going to be kept sharp with much more old-fashioned methods, like file, steel or stone, because after digging a few poop-pits and a foxhole or three, it's going to be more like a butter-knife than a battle-axe.
Sad as it might sound, he had another PET for digging with.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/47840633/1304996) | From: armb
2007-12-17 04:47 pm (UTC)
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I recently saw a review of a torch/flashlight, which helpfully explained that these days "tactical" really usually just means "available in black".
Ooh, then we're a tactical household!
So many of the things we've got - my wristwatch, digicam, PDA, pocket Filofax, Moleskine notebook, Diane's cellphone, Beemer the cat - are black that, in these dull winter afternoons, we sometimes have to turn on an excessive number of lights just to find them!
Tritium-aided fluorescent may well turn out to be the New Black...
Hey, I'm tactical! Who knew?
| From: armb
2007-12-18 08:40 am (UTC)
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Having seen that your userpic reasonably accurately represents your skin tone, I think wearing tactical clothing is as much as you can claim on those grounds :-)
(For torches/flashlights it tends to mean "bright enough to discomfort someone when shining it in their eyes, small and light enough to be used at the same time as a handgun (possibly mounted on it), and with a momentary switch on the end". But more generally it's "could plausibly be used by a TV cop".)
If the pen is mightier than the sword, I suppose it deserves the epithet "tactical"
I'm just wondering what "specific military end" the tactical underwear is designed for? Covert seduction operations perhaps, hence the need for the boxer shorts with the condom pocket.
...and the adverts on the sidebar conveniently fill with links for loads of 'tactical' bags, pouches et al.
At least they haven't filled with links for underwear.
Not so far, anyway...
And there was me thinking that мокрое дело (mokroie delo, aka "wet affairs") just meant assassination...
Okay, so in my next near-future SF novel, "boxers" will be replaced as an item of underwear by "tacticals".
And at least one unfortunate protagonist will get his tackle trapped in his tacticals.
(You know it makes sense!)
It makes perfect sense. Consider the other shorthand (or should that be short-arm?) terms for underpants: "jockeys", "y-fronts", "tighty-whiteys" and "BDUs", among others. "Tacticals" is almost too obvious. And of course Commando tacticals are just a webbing waistband... It occurs that with female undies the proper adjective shouldn't be tactical but tactile - although I'm still boggling from finding what amounts to tactical panties. Good grief. What on earth is implied by a "Power Thong"? Does it take AA batteries or something? What's next - a Kevlar bra? (And I wouldn't be surprised to find that such a thing exists. Red Sonja for the 21st Century....)
A Power thong! Now that's aggressively protecting you er assets.
"Go, go, Power Thongers!" ?
I can only saty that Power Thongers would be an excellent name for a suitably dubious anime show.
I've met people in the SCA wearing underwear which was definitely tactical. Although I wouldn't want chain mail that close to my sensitive areas...
There's a poster in our hall that reads, "Be prepared for the unexpected with kevlar fishnet stockings". I leave the accompanying illo to you imagination, save to say that young Hal finds it very funny.
And they aren;t fur-compatible...
Since going tactical seems to be a term used for putting on the cammo uniform (I heard it in conncection with the Guard at Buckingham Palace), I wonder if, for somebody with natural camouflage, tactical nudity would really work.
hey, the big guy would have weight advantage in any fight with me!
I giggled, I chuckled, and I laughed out loud. Tactical underwear... hehehe! | |
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