With cordite in the air, splintered steel, shell casings and powder burns, there’s only one explanation...
Old WQ3 forum - archived. Links may not work.

One Word A Day - <smoking gun>

Postby Clintstone » Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:26 pm

Hi everyone, just a short one (thought to put it in "Off Topic", but there's written that "Most anything not SG related goes here." This definitly is related...):

Background story: I get an English word (that is not too much common speech) per email (http://www.owad.de) each day. They give you three choices what the meaning of the word might be, and by choosing they think that you learn something. Quite funny. Anyway: Today it was - tataaaa - smoking gun :lol:

The email looks as follows (Hope you don't take that as covert advertising, they don't take money anyway):
One Word A Day wrote:Your word for 21st April 2008 is

* * * smoking gun * * *

Please choose the correct definition and click the link.


a) a signal before a final attack
http://www.owad.de/check.php4?id=2041&c ... id=1101919

b) a really stupid idea
http://www.owad.de/check.php4?id=2041&c ... id=1101919

c) a proof that something bad has happened
http://www.owad.de/check.php4?id=2041&c ... id=1101919


Happy guessing!


Afterwards, they explain how the word can be used:

R E F E R E N C E :

* * * smoking gun * * *
c) a proof that something bad has happened

PRONUNCIATION :

http://www.owad.de/wav/smokinggun.wav

GERMAN TRANSLATION :

smoking gun = der schlagende, unwiderlegbare Beweis (vor allem bei einer Straftat)

---
GOOGLE INDEX
smoking gun : approximately 2,600,000 hits

EXAMPLE SENTENCE :

In his fourth day of testimony, former Andersen partner David Duncan
admitted he also kept the so-called SMOKING-GUN memo that was written by an Andersen employee who testified early in the trial.
(BBC News)

---
"There is no SMOKING GUN and therefore no justification for a military
attack."
- Jack Straw, former British Foreign Minister discussing Iran's nuclear
program

DID YOU KNOW ?

smoking gun
noun
- something that serves as indisputable evidence or proof, especially of
a crime
(The American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition)

---
WORD ORIGIN

There is an old adage "Where there is smoke, there is fire." In other
words, if it appears that something is wrong, then something probably is
wrong. Likewise, a smoking gun is considered undeniable proof that
something bad has happened, assuming that the smoke means that the gun has just been fired. Therefore, a smoking gun is a way of describing
information or material that provides obvious evidence of a wrongdoing
or crime.

The term has been around since at least the late 19th century. In an
1893 Sherlock Holmes story, The Gloria Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote
of a murder aboard a prison ship:

We rushed into the captain's cabin... there he lay with his brains
smeared over the chart of the Atlantic... while the chaplain stood with
a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow.

While "smoking pistol" changed in occasional usage to "smoking gun" over
the years, it wasn't until the 1970s that it replaced pistol completely.
And this was thanks to the Watergate controversy. The committee created
to look into whether former U.S. President Richard Nixon was guilty of a
crime was uncertain about impeaching him. Roger Wilkins wrote in a New
York Times article on July 14, 1974:

The big question asked by the committee over the last few weeks was
"Where's the smoking gun?"

Thus, in addition to other phrases like stonewall and dirty tricks,
Watergate was responsible for making the "smoking gun" famous.

(sources: Safire's New Political Dictionary by William Safire, Random
House, New York, 1993)

---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:

"Where there is no smoking gun, one should be careful about making
accusations of wrongdoing."


Nice, isn't it? :P

All the best to you guys, unfortunately, I can't make it to the BR tournament - I'm a bad player anyway :| However: Good luck, and more of all: A lot of fun!

Clintstone [+]
User avatar
Clintstone
Quick Draw
 
Posts: 66
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:14 pm
Location: Muenster, Germany



Postby ReD NeCKersoN » Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:52 pm

Funny stuff! Thanks for sharing and hopefully we will have more tournaments in the future. Sorry to see you won't make it to this one though. :(
Image
User avatar
ReD NeCKersoN
SG Team
 
Posts: 3245
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2002 6:22 am
Location: VA, USA




Return to General Discussion

Show Sidebar
Show Sidebar

User Control Panel

cron