Talk:special military operation

RFD discussion: September 2022–January 2023

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special military operation

The Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. That's not what it means, the meaning of a term is what the user of the term intends to convey using that term. See @Lambiam's comments in Talk:специальная военная операция for a more detailed explanation of this. Note that this also does not meet our attestation criteria; {{hot word}} absolves a term merely of the "spanning one year" criterion, not the three uses criterion. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 15:30, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Note: the creator's definition was just "war", but all 3 citations are about the Ukraine thing, so I changed it. Pretending it is a general term for all wars is deeply disingenuous. Equinox ◑ 15:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that was even more wrong, but I still think that this term is just used literally in the quotations. In the translated Putin speech, Putin does not intend to convey "I'm going to start the Russo-Ukrainian War.", he intends to convey that he is starting a special military operation (people lie and masquerade their true intentions using word games, big shock!), just like somebody who stole a phone and claims to have found it on the ground uses "I found it on the ground." to convey the literal meaning, irrespective of the fact that this is not congruent with reality. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 15:40, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

(1) I apologize if the original definition was factually incorrect. (2) I apologize if the original definition was disingenuous. (3) I apologize if the page should not have been created. (4) There are ten plus cites that speak for themselves to answer all the above points; use your wisdom and judgment. (5) I will not defend the entry's continued existence; please don't contact me about this entry as I have now moved on. I am not watching the page. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC) (modified)

I see the original defining the term as "war" as a good-faith attempt at a definition. Geographyinitiative collected some useful quotations in the entry; thanks. To me, the following non-gloss definition seems to be accurate: "An Orwellian synonym of war or invasion, so far only used in reference to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine". This looks like a common noun. There is only one instance to which the noun phrase refers, so we have to somehow pick the salient characteristics of the instance; war and invasion seem to be fitting. The question remains whether this is enough lexicalized, turned into a fixed form. The Russian equivalent is now widely used by the Russian population and media to refer to the event, as a result of state censorship. Thus, the Russian term documents a widespread linguistic behavior rather than just one-off use by Putin. Of course, the English term is not used so much and in the same way, but it appears in translations from Russian, including subtitles of Russian videos showing Russian speakers. One quotation shows a use that is only an indirect reference to the invasion: "Beijing probably also has an eye on blunting the effectiveness of this particular mechanism so that it can’t be effectively deployed against China in the event that Beijing feels compelled to conduct its own “special military operation” against Taiwan." Is this still a transparent use of the component words, even if abusing their meaning? By knowing the definitions of the component words, we would not know that the phrase systematically refers to an instance in a way that violates the compositional meaning. Being a systematic misnomer contributes to something being lexicalized. I am inclined to keep, but change the definition to something like "An Orwellian synonym of war or invasion, so far only used in reference to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine". --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

It could be a usage note. I think "Orwellian" is too biased and judgemental a term for a dictionary to use as a gloss; as you see, I put "euphemism" on it, since it is euphemistic, avoiding saying "war". Equinox ◑ 12:13, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

If it only refers to a particular war, that suggests it’s a proper noun, doesn’t it? Theknightwho (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Does it? "The war that happened in the 1940s between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union" refers to a particular war, but I don't think it's a proper noun, it's just a descriptive phrase. I don't think this descriptive phrase only refers to the current Russo-Ukrainian war; some context clues must be provided/exist to signal that, e.g. saying Russia's special military operation and/or speaking about it as something happening in the present time, since otherwise Google Books has (SOP) examples of the phrase referring to other special military operations which happened decades ago, and above is a quote about a possible PRC "special military operation against Taiwan". Authors could sub in "war" or "invasion" and get the same denotative meaning across (indeed, when graffitists right now write "end the war" in yellow and blue, they do get across that they mean this particular one). I don't know how best to define it, maybe a non-gloss definition defining it as a "euphemism for a war or invasion, first idiomatically used of the Russian invasion of Ukraine"? (To some extent it bleeds into the issue we discussed in the Tea Room a while ago, that sometimes people intentionally use words wrong, Putin describes a war as a "special military operation" to be dishonest.) - -sche (discuss) 18:30, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Correct, but special military operation doesn't have a phrasal structure, and other than capitalisation has the usual hallmarks of a proper noun. A more fitting analogy might be Civil War, which is a proper noun and defined as Any of several civil wars, taken specifically. Is capitalisation really an intrinsic part of proper nouns? If so, that feels very arbitrary.

You're also right that it could be used in other contexts, but so far it hasn't been (so far as I'm aware). Theknightwho (talk) 18:38, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Isn't that exactly what the "Beijing feels compelled to conduct its own “special military operation” against Taiwan" cite is doing, using it for something else? It's derived from the Russian use of the phrase, but it's using it to mean "invasion"/"war", not saying Beijing is going to conduct a Chinese "Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014" against Taiwan. (I also question our definition's backdating of this to 2014, as a separate matter; was the term used for the Russo-Ukrainian conflict before 2022?) - -sche (discuss) 19:45, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

That's true, but you can treat proper nouns like that as well. I think Eq is right, that it's a hot word and we need to give it some time to settle. Theknightwho (talk) 21:52, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Given the discussion above, I think maybe we should send this to RFV! But we need to be aware that this has been a euphemism in one region for something that is understood almost universally elsewhere as war. And if (the point has been made) it meant one thing when Putin said it, that doesn't necessarily mean it has the same meaning in everybody else's mouth. — Regardless this is pretty much one of the things we introduced "hot word" for (one of our better ideas). Equinox ◑ 04:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Keep it somehow. If D-Day is anything to go by, that was also a special military operation during WWII, Putin's 2022 SMO is an invasion that sparked a war. DonnanZ (talk) 09:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how that relates at all. The issue is that special military operation has the form of a noun, not a proper noun. Theknightwho (talk) 21:50, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

As for RFV, I don't see why it is needed: Citations:special military operation currently contains two quotations in reference to China: 2022 March 25, Latham, Andrew and 2022 September 7, Jun Osawa. A third can refer to Ukraine. This establishes use beyond Ukraine, unless one argues that this is a regular figurative use of proper names. But then, we use exactly the kinds of figurative uses to establish new senses in proper noun entries, such as in Mother Teresa. (I argued it would be better to merge the noun senses back to proper name senses, but that's not what we usually do.) So I think the sense "war or invasion" passes RFV based on two instances to which it refers, one actual (Ukraine) and another one occurring potentially in future (Taiwan). One could object that these uses are in quotation marks and that this reinforces the notion that the phrase is not implied to be used literally in reference to Taiwan; that's true, but I am not sure this is all that serious an objection. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:16, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Delete Has no meaning except for what is implied by the meanings of the individual words. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

This person says in other RFDs that "Dictionaries should not contain proper nouns, especially ones that only refer to one thing" and "Dictionaries don't contain proper names", the former being an opinion contrary to our CFI, the latter being manifestly factually wrong. I think votes by someone like that should not count. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:38, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• RFD-kept: no consensus for deletion. Current def: "A military situation resembling a war (usually referencing the events of February 2022 in the Russo-Ukrainian War)". The def should ideally read "A war" (it does not need to resemble war; it is a war), but will be kept anyway. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)