Naming (Inter)national Tragedies

As I watched the news coverage of the London attacks, I heard several reporters refer to the event as 7-7.  They weren't naming the full date, July 7, 2005; they simply called it 7-7 in exactly the same way as people now commonly refer to 9-11.

I wonder how long it will be before I hear the phrase "in this post-September-11th, post-July-7th world?"

It occurs to me that few people refer to Pearl Harbor as simply December 7th.  The destruction from the current hurricane will not be referred to by the date that it came ashore.  If I say April 19, how many of you know immediately that I'm referring to Oklahoma City?

I first wondered about dates after 9-11.  You see, I had a theory that the attack date was chosen to coincide with the number of our emergency telephone service. Obviously it caused many people to dial that number on that day.  I'm still convinced that somewhere in this country are children who have just learned that they should call 911 in an emergency, and who have erroneously concluded that the telephone number was chosen to commemorate September 11th.

So how do we avoid phrases like "on 9-11, 7-7, and ..." which after having future dates tacked on the end will sound more like a string of lotto numbers than tragic events?

Using the name of a location fails for 9-11 because it happened in several different locations, plus 9-11 is now so ingrained in the collective consciousness that it's too late to change.

American media is beginning to use "Attacks on London," which is probably fine for now because it's fairly descriptive, but years from now would cause historians to say "which attacks?  The Blitz?"  It will most likely be up to the British what they choose to call 7-7, but I tend to think they won't name it.  I understand they have had similar experiences before and I don't think the previous terrorist attacks have names.

I don't have a solution other than to use the full date, including the year, and the location -- but that's a little verbose for news and political sound bytes.

•  If anything...

  I suspect it will be referenced as something like 'the London bombing of 2005.' The Brits seem to have an unspoken convention when it comes to 'naming' events - if it's a period: give it a name, if it's a single event: just use the city.

  For the first, look at The Troubles or The Blitz. Both were a series of events, stretched out over a period. When they're invoked, it's in reference to the whole time period, not the individual event.

  For the second, and any Brit what they think of when you say the words Omagh, Hillsborough, Lockerbie, or Dunblaine. In this case, it's a reference to the exact event, and to the people of the city that it affected. The exception to this would be Bloody Sunday, although (in terms of my nomenclature) you could argue that it counts as a part of The Troubles, and isn't a name in itself.

  So if anything, I'll call it for 'the London bombings of 2005,' as too many things (and too many bombings) have taken place to simply label the event as London.

  by Scipio on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:01:05 PM PDT

•  September 11

  I have never, ever used the annoying "9/11" abbreviation for it.

  I assume that had it only been the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the attack at the Pentagon, we would refer to it with more specificity (i.e. Embassy Bombing, USS Cole, Khobar Towers). But since multiple cities were attacked on September 11, referring to the date does seem more useful than a specific site.

  Normally, though, I prefer site-specifics. Some folks referred to the Madrid attack as 11-3, but that never stuck, it has become remembered as the Madrid bombing.

  Ironically, with both London and Madrid, there have been literally dozens of other terrorist bombings in those cities over the years. But for some reason these have special significance, and I'm not sure it's just because of the death toll.

  by eugene on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM PDT

  •  9/11 and WMDs

    I think both the abbreviations 9/11 and WMDs were created as shorthand for use in news crawls like CNN's.

    Crawl writers evidently do not have the poetic souls of yesterday's headline writers who found more pleasing shorthand (like "Hub" for Boston) to save typographical real estate.

    by emptypockets on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:14:46 PM PDT

•  9/11 and Ground Zero

  A possibly corny and probably unworkable suggestion would be to name these attacks after the youngest victim.  I can think of about 5 reasons right now why that's a bad idea (it diminishes the other victims; it is not a unique name -- how many "Jessica bombings" might we have?; it makes it sound like the victim DID the bombing; it would not be clear who the youngest victim is particularly in the case of pregnant women; it makes them sound like hurricanes), but just thought I'd throw it out there.

  The other term that emerged from the September 11 terrorist attacks was "Ground Zero."  I'm not sure why it is, but the phrase has always bothered me.  I think it's because it makes it sound like the title of an action movie rather than the place where 3,000 died.
  

  by emptypockets on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:11:08 PM PDT

•  9/11 ...

  ... doesn't annoy  me. It's the day of the event. How annoying is "the fourth of July"? It also evokes 911 the emergency code -- which it certainly was, in so many ways.

  As for tacking on other dates -- won't happen. No one tacked on the date of the Madrid bombings. No one will tack on the date of the London bombings.

  7/7 is shorthand. It will soon go away. If they adopt it in London, it will be theirs. Whatever folks call the bombings in Madrid is theirs.

  Like it or not, most of us know our terrorist hit as 9/11.

  -- Nancy

  by Nancy Varian on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:12:43 PM PDT

•  I get pissy about recent trends in naming wars

  "Operation Iraqi Freedom"?  WTF?

  The Second Iraq War would make me feel better.

  National tragedy naming also pisses me off.  The graphics on all the major networks that seek to characterize an event really annoy.  I don't need them to tell me that a bombing is a fucking tragedy.  I can discern that via my own moral compass.

  by inclusiveheart on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:34:11 PM PDT

  •  name for current "war"

    I tend to refer to it as the Iraq War.  The 1990s version was to me the Gulf War, as it was originally about Kuwait not Iraq.

    by annetteboardman on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 02:46:53 PM PDT

    •  Yes I go back and forth

      on that, but our target then was Iraq not Kuwait.  Then we were closer to being "liberators".  In conversation I sometimes call it "Iraq Part Two", but I too am guilty of editorializing with that statement.

      by inclusiveheart on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 03:24:11 PM PDT

•  the same thing has happened with political scandal

  watergate
  lewinksygate
  coingate
  etc etc

  by thisisnotadrill on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 01:48:57 PM PDT

  •  Except that Watergate

    was and is an actual place.  All "gates" are derrived from the name of the Watergate apartment building where the break in took place.  

    The Lewinsky thing might have been more accurately called "The White House" if it were important enough to talk about the sexual interlude that took place.

    by inclusiveheart on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 03:26:57 PM PDT

•  I'd use the Japanese method

  For the most part, it's the "month-day" Incident, like Feburary 26th Incident or the May 15 Incident, unless it encompasses a single location, like the Hiroshima bombing or the Nagasaki bombing. It's usually based off the context.

  Incidentally, the Japanese, or at least the one's I've talked to, rarely refer to 9-11 like this, but as the "WTC Bombing" or "WTC and Pentagon Bombings".

  by Young Freud on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 02:06:33 PM PDT

  •  Interesting

    Calling it the WTC bombing makes more sense to me, since that's where most of the casualties were, but in the US people I think a lot of people would complain that it doesn't include the victims at the other sites.

    by lemuel on Sat Jul 09, 2005 at 02:10:24 PM PDT