# What is with the euphemism IED? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966 "2014-06-29T22:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/21 "2014-06-30T09:56:08Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Yeah, I’m glad if this distinction has died. It’s not a useful distinction to make, because whether you read individual letters, or as a word, can differ from person to person (e.g. “URL”). Exactly! And then what about acronyms like VBIED (Vehicle-borne improvised explosive device)? It is pronounced “vee-bed”. Or MPSIMS when pronounced like many of us do: “im pee sims”. They are half acronym, and half initialism according to **flight**. So what are they called, then? ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/22 "2014-06-30T10:09:04Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Exactly! And then what about acronyms like VBIED (Vehicle-borne improvised explosive device)? It is pronounced “vee-bed”. Or MPSIMS when pronounced like many of us do: “im pee sims”. They are half acronym, and half initialism according to **flight**. So what are they called, then? I pronounce it “mip sims.” ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/23 "2014-06-30T11:49:32Z")
As above, it is not a euphemism. They are improvised, they are explosive, they are devices. What’s the issue? They are not land mines. Similar, in the sense that they are concealed explosives, but they are NOT the same thing. The biggest difference is the stand-off. Land mines are typically pressure-rigged devices intended to detonate underneath the target. IEDs are typically not… they are often initiated by the operator or an electrical pressure switch, and almost never placed directly under the target. This means that the TTPs you use to fight land mines are quite different from the TTPs used to fight IEDs. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/24 "2014-06-30T12:09:47Z")
“Home-made bomb” has the same number of syllables as “IED.” ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/25 "2014-06-30T12:46:04Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Merriam-Webster disagrees with you. They even list FBI as an example of an acronym. [Acronym Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym) > > Your nitpick is half a century too late, I think. The [OED](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/acronym?q=acronym) is going with my pronounce/don’t pronounce distinction, also the Chicago Manual of Style (login required). As to what you call a mixture of the two, I would go with acronym since part of it is pronounced, or just abbreviation. Seriously, what is the point of learning the rules if you just have to relearn different ones every hundred years? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/26 "2014-06-30T12:57:33Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Yeah, I’m glad if this distinction has died. It’s not a useful distinction to make, because whether you read individual letters, or as a word, can differ from person to person (e.g. “URL”). Huh? You’ve spoken with people who have said “that [earl] is” …?" ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/27 "2014-06-30T14:06:03Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Huh? You’ve spoken with people who have said “that [earl] is” …?" Not sure if I’m being whooshed, but I actually hear U R L far more often. …and I say U R L. I’m not prepared to “enter the earl”! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/28 "2014-06-30T14:25:49Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Home-made bomb” has the same number of syllables as “IED.” But a lot more letters. Will somebody think of the print journalists ?! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/29 "2014-06-30T14:40:01Z")
> [@flight](#): > > Seriously, what is the point of learning the rules if you just have to relearn different ones every hundred years? I can state with some confidence that this is probably not going to be a problem for most of us. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/30 "2014-06-30T14:49:17Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But a lot more letters. Will somebody think of the print journalists ?! I think this is part of the problem - not journalists, but Army guys writing up reports on a manual typewriter back in the Good Old Days. Those days probably were not that long ago. We forget that word processing and laser printers as pervasive technology are pretty new (not long before 2000?) and also that forward military bases were probably the last places to get temperamental PCs and jam-prone laser printers as opposed to typewriters, a tech even lieutenants could understand. And if the Army is like the organizations I know, it probably ran on forms that needed to be filled out. TLA’s shortened typing. Heck, some acronyms like “SNAFU” are legendary even if they are not official. But the point has been made. Standard, specific and precise terminology makes the reports more understandable; as pointed out, “land mine”, “homemade bomb” (or “bomb”) “booby trap” etc. all have definitional flaws that they may appear misleading and not give the exact impression needed. Keep in mind a lot of the insurgency in Iraq at first benefitted from professional help. The Americans cleverly fired all the Iraqi army and police, so some of the top trained military had the background and knew where the supplies were stored to improvise some very clever explosive devices; nothing homemade or booby about them. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/31 "2014-06-30T16:24:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Home-made bomb” has the same number of syllables as “IED.” To me, “home-made” in the context of bomb means the creators made their own explosive, like Michael and Fiona, or Kyle Reese, cooking up C4 in a mixing bowl from stuff you can buy at Wal Mart. “IED” means they took an existing available explosive (gunpowder, det cord, disassembled munition) and made an alternate way for it to go boom. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/32 "2014-06-30T16:27:39Z")
Personally, I’d like to see the word “petard” brought back to replace IED in this context, even if a petard isn’t exactly the same thing as an IED. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/33 "2014-07-01T01:05:50Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > No, we don’t. While some IEDs are booby-traps, not all of them are. > > Not all booby-traps are IEDs and not all IEDs are booby-traps. The words are not interchangeable. It would be like saying "Some mustangs are cars, so we should call every car a mustang even though not all cars are actually mustangs and not every mustang is actually a car. It could mean a horse, after all. > > Calling an IED an IED is not about propaganda. It is about accuracy and brevity. Well, is there in use a word (or an initialism, or an acronym) which covers the same range of devices as “IED” does, but which refers to devices which are not improvised? And, if not, why not? What’s going through my mind is this; not every IED is a booby-trap, or a mine, or whatever. But in most cases a _specific_ IED could equally be called a mine, or a booby-trap, or something else. And if we don’t need a generic term for the varied explosive devices used by our own troops, why do we need, and use, a generic term for those employed by the other side? Instead of reporting that a US military patrol was blown up by an IED, if in fact the IED was on this occasion a mine we could report that it was blown up by a mine. Why don’t we? When the British army was using “IED” in the 1980s, the term didn’t leak into media reports; they still referred to mines, booby traps, culvert bombs, etc. Replacing all this with references to “IEDs”, as happens now, gives us _less_ information about the specifics of the attack, but calls attention to the irregular status of the attackers. There may be more than one possible explanation for that trade-off, but “propagandising” is certainly one. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/34 "2014-07-01T01:23:32Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > To me, “home-made” in the context of bomb means the creators made their own explosive, like Michael and Fiona, or Kyle Reese, cooking up C4 in a mixing bowl from stuff you can buy at Wal Mart. “IED” means they took an existing available explosive (gunpowder, det cord, disassembled munition) and made an alternate way for it to go boom. Home-made bombs commonly use gasoline or gunpowder taken from shells or bullets, don’t they? I don’t agree that the explosive itself must have been manufactured at home. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/35 "2014-07-01T01:50:16Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It makes it sound like something got filed in the wrong drawer, rather than like someone got blown into a bloody pulp. But if we have a reliable indication that s/he got blown up then we go ahead and call that a KIA. When we say MIA we are \*\*\*not \*\*\*quite sure if s/he was blown to a bloody pulp, had a mental episode and wandered off, deserted/defected (with or without going native), was captured by rogue irregulars who have not bothered “claiming credit”, waded into a river right next to a hungry crocodile, was swallowed up by a sinkhole, whatever. S/he was last reported taking part in the mission, and once the action was over s/he was not there when we counted who came back but nobody actually saw him/her die. S/he is missing. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/36 "2014-07-01T02:28:20Z")
As I understand it, the most common IED was made from artillery shells. Basically, the bomb builders got their hands on artillery shells, installed electrically initiated explosive as a primary, and rigged the device to either a pair of cellular phones or a long wire. They would then hide the device in a hole in the ground or pile of trash near the roadway. This device isn’t homemade - the builders of it knew what they were doing. It’s also not a manufactured device intended for this purpose - HE artillery rounds are not as good as things like the shaped charges that form EFPs. It’s not a mine - usually it’s not buried under the intended target, and usually it is set off using a remote detonator so that it hits the intended targets instead of the first schmuck to come along. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/37 "2014-07-01T02:42:09Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Personally, I’d like to see the word “petard” brought back to replace IED in this context, even if a petard isn’t exactly the same thing as an IED. No, that would be weird. A _pétard_, nowadays, is what the French call a small firecracker. Talk about your distasteful euphemisms ! (well us calling firecrackers “pétard”, which originally referred to sapping charges & barrels of gunpowder, was a dysphemism originally. But calling IED petards today would be the other way around :o) ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/38 "2014-07-01T08:58:16Z")
I’m in favor of bringing Petard back just for the chance to refer to some unlucky enemy as having been hoist by his own petard (a not strictly uncommon fate for those involved in the production and deployment of IEDs, incidentally) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/39 "2014-07-02T01:14:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Habeed** : > > …and rigged the device to either a pair of cellular phones or a long wire. Why a pair of cell phones? It seems to me that one would be enough. Unless you mean the one that’s used to place the trigger-call, but that one wouldn’t need to be rigged to anything, and could be any phone at all that’s connected to the network. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966/40 "2014-07-02T18:16:50Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Merriam-Webster disagrees with you. They even list FBI as an example of an acronym. [Acronym Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym) > > Your nitpick is half a century too late, I think. Ugh. Another example where people doing it wrong sets the new standard. So many people incorrectly called initialisms as acronyms that the term acronym now includes initialisms in many dictionaries. FBI is an initialism by ALL definitions; it’s an acronym by only some definitions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-euphemism-ied/691966.md?page=3)