Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 March 25

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March 25

When and why did we start calling them 'nuclear devices'?

It feels like a euphemism to me, something cooked up as propaganda in support of nuclear bombs.

Even if certain weapons were sometimes referred to as devices before this, was there nevertheless some govt. body that made it into a buzzword?

A 1956 news reel refers to a device being tested at Maralinga - so we know it's before then anyway.

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 05:02, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

First use in Australian newspapers [thank you Trove] was in May 1952. Marines Feel Heat of Atomic Blast but surely copying American useage. Doug butler (talk) 06:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The earliest use in the OED Online is from Life magazine in 1954 but refers to the explosion in 1952 of a "hydrogen device" at Eniwetok. The "device in question" weighed 82 tons (74 tonnes) and therefore could not be dropped from an airplane the way the usual atomic bombs could. This was a few months after the explosion that Doug mentioned, but perhaps it gave additional impetus to avoiding the word "bomb". --184.147.181.129 (talk) 08:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I think bombs predate airplanes. I'd say a bomb is anything meant to inflict damage via explosion (distinct from explosions not meant to harm another party, like for excavation; I don't think I'd call those "bombs"). "Bomb" for the payload of a missile seems accurate to me. --Trovatore (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC) EDIT -- this was meant to be in response to Alansplodge. --Trovatore (talk) 18:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

As in "The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air." (1814) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:56, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Trovatore's interpretation of "bomb", but in the context of military use in the 1940s/50s I think it suggests something transported by airplane or rocket, which an 82-ton device is not. --184.147.181.129 (talk) 01:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Note that the first thermonuclear explosion, Ivy Mike, was "not suitable for use as a deliverable weapon", so "device" was a good description. Also "bomb" suggests a weapon dropped from an aeroplane, whereas nuclear missiles and even artillery shells were developed in the 1950s, so an umbrella term was required. Alansplodge (talk) 09:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

If you watch this video on Ivy Mike, it is refered to as a "device" at around 25 seconds https://archive.org/details/OperationIVY1952_201501 --TrogWoolley (talk) 14:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The use of "device" for "bomb" is pretty old. In an account from 1784, the bomb is called perhaps "the most hellish device, that has as yet been made for the destruction of mankind".^[1] Clearly, this was not meant as a euphemism. The connotation here is, I think, still strongly that of something devised for a purpose, that of destruction. (The term "hellish device" for a bomb has also been used much later than the early uses of "nuclear device".^[2])  --Lambiam 10:12, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

By 1965, the usage was well-established, which is what led Tom Lehrer to comment for his song "Who's Next": "Last year China, which we call 'Red China', exploded a nuclear bomb, which we called a 'device'." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

This being the language desk, might be worth mentioning that a device is something you devise, so for example being a "prisoner of one's own device" doesn't necessarily imply that the device is a physical object. This c/s substitution seems pretty general (prophesy for the verb, prophecy for the noun, for example). Curious whether anyone knows more.

Advise/advice and in this part of the world, practise/practice. I can't think of any others. (Is it OK to butt in like that?? Sorry.) Doug butler (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

That aside, I do think this sounds like a PR choice of words. Whether to make them sound less bad or more impressive I'm not sure. Could be they didn't think the word "bomb" was grand enough for this new sort of destruction. --Trovatore (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Synonyms are "nuclear weapon" and "nuclear warhead", both of which I suppose might be thought to sound rather more aggressive. Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all, very interesting. So it might have just been a more literate than usual journalist who first applied the term, and others picked it up Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Adambrowne666, note that the 1952 video linked above was produced by the US Air Force. Alansplodge (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I have a half-memory that in some places a bomb is legally called an infernal device. —Tamfang (talk) 02:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

The archaic designations hellish device (see above) and infernal device both correspond to French engin infernal or machine infernale, expressions used with the same range of meanings – often referring to specifically a bomb, but more generally any contraption devised by human ingenuity to sow death and destruction. Likewise, we find in German höllisches Gerät or Höllengerät and in Dutch helsche machine. Some calquing must have been going on.  --Lambiam 13:34, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Note incidentally that the use of "device" for bombs is not limited to nuclear ones. The ugly phrase improvised explosive device seems to have become widely used lately. I also thought of incendiary device, but those don't explode, so they really aren't bombs. --184.147.181.129 (talk) 05:20, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Late, but just adding the ngram graph, which is interesting. Bomb has the edge except in the 1970s, but the two terms appeared pretty much in parallel. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Note that the very first nuclear explosion (versus something small enough to happen in a lab), a part of the Manhattan Project, was called "the gadget" rather than "the bomb". Nyttend backup (talk) 11:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again all Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)