# Without checking any reference source: define and give the significance of the word "blitzkrieg." **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 23, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798 "2014-04-23T19:37:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798/121 "2014-05-08T17:17:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Wait, what? I’ve never heard of anyone referring to the blitz (as in the American football defensive maneuver) as “blitzkrieg”. As far as I can tell it has always just been _the blitz_. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_(gridiron_football)) certainly thinks it’s borrowed from the war tactic: > [@](#): > > In American football or Canadian football, a blitz is when additional players are sent to “rush the quarterback”—that is, try to tackle the quarterback or disrupt his pass attempt. The term is borrowed from the Blitzkrieg, the German strategy of “Lightning War” employed during World War II. Like the Blitzkrieg, the blitz is a concentration of force at high speed to force a breakthrough and proceed without regard to the flanks. So does [Bleacher Report](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1184750-25-craziest-football-terms-and-where-they-come-from#articles/1184750-25-craziest-football-terms-and-where-they-come-from/page/20): > [@](#): > > Ah, the blitz. > > A term so popular it has spawned it’s own video game series. > > Surely you can guess the origins of this defensive term… > > It comes from the war moniker “blitzkrieg,” which means “lightning war” in English. And the venerable [OED](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/blitz): > [@](#): > > 2 Football Attack (the passer) in a blitz. > > Origin > World War II: abbreviation of blitzkrieg. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798/122 "2014-05-08T17:43:34Z")
I like the French translation: \*La Guerre Eclair. \* Sounds like a dessert. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798/123 "2014-05-10T00:26:24Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I would have thought that every college-educated adult in the United States–hell, every middle school graduate in the US–would know at least the basics of the term, but perhaps I was wrong. Or perhaps the memo-writer is the rule-proving exception. You’re missing a very fundamental fact about history classes in the US–they spent approximately 30 weeks of the school year going through the colonial era and the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (or if it’s world history, going through ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and Ellizabethan England). That means everything else has to be wedged into the other 6 weeks of the school year. I have never once, in any history class I ever took in 12 years of public education, made it past the stock market crash in '29, and that was after wedging the entirety of WWI and the Roaring 20’s into one week. We never covered the majority of the Depression, much less WWII. Everything I know about the Korean War, I learned from Alan Alda, and let’s not even get into the piecemeal nature of my understanding of the Space Race, 'Nam, and the oil embargo. FTR, I knew it was German for “lightning war” but I was under the impression it had to do with bombing runs over London. Like I said, we never got further than the crash, so most of my knowledge comes from novels and haphazardly-read Time Life books. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798/124 "2014-05-10T00:44:17Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > You’re missing a very fundamental fact about history classes in the US–they spent approximately 30 weeks of the school year going through the colonial era and the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (or if it’s world history, going through ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and Ellizabethan England). That means everything else has to be wedged into the other 6 weeks of the school year. I have never once, in any history class I ever took in 12 years of public education, made it past the stock market crash in '29, and that was after wedging the entirety of WWI and the Roaring 20’s into one week. We never covered the majority of the Depression, much less WWII. Everything I know about the Korean War, I learned from Alan Alda, and let’s not even get into the piecemeal nature of my understanding of the Space Race, 'Nam, and the oil embargo. > > FTR, I knew it was German for “lightning war” but I was under the impression it had to do with bombing runs over London. Like I said, we never got further than the crash, so most of my knowledge comes from novels and haphazardly-read Time Life books. Unless, of course, you grew up a stone’s throw from Manassas battlefield. In that case, you would have spent 35 of those weeks on the American Civil War, because your history teacher’s obsession with it is the whole reason s/he moved here in the first place. S/he is writing a dissertation on some esoteric detail of the war which s/he honestly (and naively) believes no one else has ever thought of before, much less presented to you. This is a specious notion, deserving of all the contempt a seventh grade class can spew toward it. And believe me, we did. Fortunately, this was balanced by a population heavily strewn with military Moms and Dads, who took it upon themselves to educate us, at least on topics of major wars and which Generals to root for at the movies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-checking-any-reference-source-define-and-give-the-significance-of-the-word-blitzkrieg/686798.md?page=6)