Surge is the word

Two years ago this time, surge still meant the tsunami tidal wave devastating much of the coastline of the eastern Indian Ocean.

Now I suppose the playpen's speech writers and linguistic genies have advised the bushbaby of the cogency and efficacy and metaphorical desirability of the same happening in Iraq, while he's still at the wheel of the ship of state on the high waves of international crisis.

Even my students in class today were baffled by the use of this word as they tried, rather successfully, to decipher CNN news under my patient guidance. Why don't they just call it an "increase" of troops or "more troops" or a "rise in the number"? Such were their proposals. And they were fascinated to learn of the oceanic tidal wave of destruction the playpen is attempting to evoke with this "surge" of poetry from a bushbaby mouth.

Surging right along: Who will rebuild everything after this "surge" of troops swamps the country, the enemy, the insurgents, the people, the civilians, the country, al Qaida, the one's "we" don't like, whatever, whoever...? Or is the "shock and awe" (old code words) of the "surge" supposed to stun us so that we can only watch with wide open mouths how a playpen continues to rattle the world.

And as you can see here, I'm not alone in detecting verbal aggression in this:

surge (surj) n. 1. a sudden increase . . . in political parlance
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 10, 2007; Page C01
It's one of those words -- like "chad" or "blog" or "waterboarding" -- that's suddenly become the go-to phrase to describe a contemporary phenomenon.

Click this LINK to the entire, quite witty article.