European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 16 columns the stars and stripes monday August 17.1987 rear end begins with an by William Safire the secret presidential finding that he destroyed. Rear adm. John m. Point fur Lold the Iron Contra commit tees on National television had been prepared essentially by the Cia As a what we Coll a cya Cia As most americans know stands for Central intelligence Agency or in recent years Casey in action cya is a less familiar military bureaucratic term thai sen. Sam Nunn d.-ga., defined in a ques Tion to another witness at he hearings. In t this Cable in effect a cya Cable. They were covering their rear end Back in Washington weren t they the senator is Correct in his definition the term Means to diffuse responsibility and appropriately delicate in his euphemism. The first two initials of cya stand for cover your and the dread a word is expressed variously As rear end Bull behind Back Side Tail scat or if you Are president Reagan objection to the operative word is of Long stand ing a new sense has evolved that uses the word for the posterior As a synecdoche for the whole person an now 10 More one s backside Means merely to move oneself quickly. Thus the initials today Are an anachronism Euph Mizing a meaning that has changed. Initialise was also used by the former White House chief of staff Donald t. Regan who Thoudile the arms sales were conducted under a policy of Mph nonprofit a committee member. Rep. Jack Brooks a Texas soon recalled what he described As an East Texas expression about an eager customer if for Cash in businessmen Art slipping into Initialise and government officials will soon be using bpm Best practical Means cogs Cost of Good cold and Opo one person meanwhile bureaucrats like Poindexter have adopted micromanage the Board room synonym disparaging the sort Ocman Aguf Mcnol that Usea to be criticized As tins tuning. We d been Snow Kemp again Regan reported he old the president adding. How Many times do we put up with this Rug merchant Type of stuff although nig merchant is widely understood to be a derogation fora craftily bargaining untrustworthy tradesman Andis sometimes taken As a slur against both persians and manufacturers of Hairpiece the verb to snooker is less familiar to younger americans never exposed to Pool Hall life. Snooker is a variation of billiards played with 15 re balls a while Cue Ball and six balls of other Colon. The Story is told of a subaltern in Central India Neville Chamberlain later prime minister of Britain who in 187 was playing this game with a Cadet with the last name of snooker. The Cadet played so badly tha Chamberlain used his name eponymous to to mean to place oneself in an impossible influenced by the earlier to code a Snook a vulgar hand gesture the verb came to mean to cheat swin dle not necessarily by hustlers limited to billiard Par lore. Card players prefer the synonym to euchre after the name of the game in which the player making Trump is prevented from winning the necessary three tricks that has come to mean to cheat also the victim is euchre out of what he thinks is rightfully his rep. Sen. James a. Mcclure of Idaho promptly used a card term in response to Regan s Pool halt usage there arc a lot of markers Down Here. In context he seemed to be referring to conflicting stories Lold by various witnesses. Originally a scorecard the Marker came to mean a promissory note or iou accepted among gamblers. In current political usage says Rich Ard Perle a former department of defense official an now a novelist of Lay Down a Marker Means to give an indication of concern to put someone on notice but not to take the Issue through to a conclusion or one linguistic error made during the hearings was in the misconception of the phrase plausible denial. This term of Art was rightly used first by it col Oliver a North part of a Covert operation is to offer plausible deniability of the association of the government of uie United states with the the meaning is cover Story As Fox butter Field of the new York times Points out in intelligence plausible deniability Means that higher ups do know but the paper work is slopped at a lower level so that the higher ups Don t appear to however when used by poin Duxler that phrase los tits Central Point instead of being a believable fiction Lold by a president who knew of the diversion secret it was a truthful denial by a president who was denied any knowledge of the secret. As for Covert action the hearings Laid Down the Marker for the final switch of the pronunciation of Covert. For can tunics Covert sounded like cover How Ever in juxtaposition with its opposite in spook speak the out in Lac open overt the pronunciation of the sneaky Covert has been changing. Now it s of Vert and coh Vert. North had some trouble with perpetuity but Persic cred and managed to gel out the Correct per be too it cd Secretary of slate George p. Shultz came up with a creative oxymoron. He described the testimony of assistant Secretary of slate Elliott Abrams As a combat Ive apology which was a cruel kindness met with Thun Derous silence. However the Shilz usage most widely remarked was the bureaucratic term to task. In Washington nobody in a with it Mode assigns anymore Nothey far in thereby sounding like an old Ella Fitzgerald song. That word was originally a verb based on tax to exact tribute from and has now reverted to its 1483 form. Re lately the verb compartmentalize in its past participle compartmentalized has been clipped to Compart mended by people who work in top secret sensitive eyes Only compartments. The alliteration prize was won by Robert c. Mcfarlane for his the contras had to continue in some fashion to buy Beans bullets who was the linguistic Star of the hearings my vote Congress bul i did not mislead it or that the administration s support for the contras was secret activity but not Covert action. Or that the Transfer of funds for the sole of weapons was a technical implementation not a substantive decision How a 1he y i my. Kuimoff Tifis at. 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