Like many of you, I found myself glued to the television during the first weeks of the Iraqi war. At one point, I found an imprint on my finger from the button on the remote control from switching between what I call the "tragedy channels" (CNN, Fox and MSNBC).

The more I watched the press briefings, the reports from the field and all the military retirees who have become "talking heads" on the various networks, the more it occurred to me that this war has generated a new vocabulary of words and phrases that undoubtedly will find their way into the American language. No longer did we have reporters traveling along with the troops; now they were "embedded." It was interesting to note that many of these new words and phrases are military jargon designed to put a spin on something bad. Phrases such as "friendly fire," "collateral damage," "daisy cutter" and "attrition of the enemy" help to soften the situation and make it not seem so negative.

The first hours after President Bush's 48-hour notice to Saddam Hussein to leave the country found us hearing new phrases - "targets of opportunity" and "decapitation strike." Then we waited for the long-touted "shock and awe" bombing as we heard about "flight packages," "deconflicting the airspace" and "shaping the battlefield."

All of these expressions, phrases and words are euphemisms - words or expressions that people use to find a polite or less direct way of talking about a difficult or embarrassing topic. Or in other words, euphemisms are the verbiage you use when you want to express something, but you really do not want to say it.

There are many ugly sides to war; therefore, military dialogue is full of euphemisms. The idea behind military euphemisms is to pacify the audience to make an unpleasant situation more acceptable. During World War I, traumatized veterans were said to be "shell-shocked." In the 1940s, the U.S. government changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense.

Euphemisms have made their way into our everyday life and it does not have to be a military event. In the early 1990s, President Clinton spoke of "growing the economy." Even though English teachers struggled with this term, it is still used today.