

Nov 20, 2014 This week's theme

Words borrowed from German



This week's words

gemeinschaft

strafe

gleichschaltung

sitzkrieg

leitmotif



UK army personnel, Nov 28, 1939 Photo: Lt. Keating G. Words borrowed from German A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg



sitzkrieg PRONUNCIATION: (SITS-kreeg)

MEANING: noun: A period of war marked by little or no active hostilities.

ETYMOLOGY: Modeled after German blitzkrieg , from sitzen (to sit) + Krieg (war). Earliest documented use: 1940.

NOTES: In Sep 1939, France and Britain declared war on Germany, but didn't launch a major ground offensive until the next year. This phase, from Sep 1939 to May 1940, came to be known as sitzkrieg or the sitting war. It has also been called by other names, such as the Phoney War, the Twilight War, and the Bore War (a pun on Boer Wars). Sitzkrieg needs sitzfleisch

USAGE: "This has been a period of lull: this war's first, but not last, sitzkrieg."

Michael Kelly; What Now?; The Atlantic Monthly (Boston); Oct 2002.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is. -Nadine Gordimer, novelist, Nobel laureate (1923-2014)





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