On "Militants" and "Mayhem": Ten Words in the News That You Need to Know

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This week, we read about the Fed postponing its plan to taper bond-buying, Somali militants staging a hostage siege in an upscale Kenyan mall, House Republicans threatening to shut down the U.S. government, and President Obama articulating a revised diplomatic policy in the Middle East.

To fully understand these unfolding news stories, learn ten key words taken from Washington Post and New York Times coverage.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. taper
    diminish gradually
    Wall Street grabbed hold of taper to describe the Fed's proposed stepping down from its quantitative easement bond-buying program, and even after the Fed postponed that effort, there's no sign of a taper for the term. Read about Septaper and Octaper here.
  2. militant
    engaged in war
    If militant makes you think of the military, good. It refers to someone who fights, or engages in "military" action to get what they want. Thus, calling the terrorists who attacked civilians in a mall militants is appropriate. It suggests that they are taking their campaign to a military level. But do note: As an adjective, militant can simply stand in for "hard core," as in your militant opposition to eating sugar.
  3. asymmetric
    characterized by lack of balance in the arrangement of parts
    Asymmetric describes a lack of symmetry, equality, or equivalence. In a military context, it refers to warfare where the forces fighting are significantly different from each other either in terms of power or strategy, an important concept to get under your belt if you plan to read or talk about terrorism.
  4. porous
    full of holes
    Porous, which means filled with holes, is a word you might recognize from chemistry and geology, where it refers to rocks, soil, or other materials that might appear solid, but in fact allow liquid or gas to pass through. When a country's borders are said to be porous, that doesn't suggest they're completely unguarded; simply that there are many holes, or ways, to get across.
  5. mayhem
    violent and needless disturbance
    Although mayhem is often used as an exaggerated way to refer to chaos and noise (say, describing a toddler birthday party), its original meaning is "a disturbance of a violent nature." With its cousin maim, mayhem evolved from the Old French mahaigne, which was a legal term for an "injury, wrong, harm, damage." So when you think of mayhem think of the kind of violent chaos you'd see on the field of battle, not just boisterous name calling and spit balls.
  6. filibuster
    a tactic for delaying legislation by making long speeches
    A filibuster is a legislative technique through which a legislator delays a vote on a bill by speaking continuously. Perhaps its most famous example is fictional: Jimmy Stewart's filibuster in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
  7. immolate
    kill as a sacrifice, especially by fire
    Immolation suggests martyrdom, particularly the burning alive of Christians in the early days of the church. Self-immolation means sacrificing your life -- or in this case, your political fortunes -- in order to stand up for what you believe.
  8. exceptional
    surpassing what is common or usual or expected
    Followers of Obama news will have heard this word often in the past few weeks, after he used it in a television address explaining the U.S. reaction to chemical warfare in Syria, saying, "When, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death...I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional."
  9. pivot
    axis consisting of a shaft supporting something that turns
    To understand the "Asia pivot" announced in 2010 as Obama administration's refocusing on Asia, you'll need to know that pivot means to turn on a fixed point. Find more on Obama's pivot here.
  10. irresolute
    uncertain how to act or proceed
    Both irresolute, meaning "undecided or uncertain" and its opposite resolute, meaning "admirably purposeful," describe degrees of resolve, a noun which means "determination." To call a president's foreign policy irresolute is to suggest that he doesn't know what he wants or how to make it happen.
  11. taper
    diminish gradually
Created on 九月 27, 2013

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