How crawfish entered the lexicon of war...
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Your support makes all the difference.Say what you like about George Bush; the chances are you won't say it half as colourfully as he could.
Yesterday, the 43rd President added two new verbs to the language of diplomacy, accusing the Iraqi leader of having "stiffed" and "crawfished" the international community in his refusal to come clean on weapons programmes.
What is it about Saddam Hussein, one may wonder, that brings out the verbal best in Mr Bush? More to the point, what has the tasty freshwater crustacean, its delicate flesh so prized by European and American epicures alike, to do with the behaviour of the villain of Baghdad? The answer lies in its characteristic form of motion.
Websters, which performs the same function for the American language as the OED does for British English, defines "to crawfish" as "to retreat from a position, to back out, to fail to stick to a statement made". It would seem to refer to the habit of the crawfish of scuttling backwards into a hole at the first hint of trouble.
"Stiffing", in the sense the President employed it, means to cheat someone or to take him for a sucker. The origin is to "stiff-arm" or "strong-arm" someone.
Southern presidents have always been more fun to listen to, even if, as in the case of the adopted Texan, Mr Bush, they do not mean to be. Bill Clinton, from Arkansas, had an idiomatic turn of phrase too, telling strange tales about turtles on fenceposts.
Mr Bush, though, has deliberately made "down home" straight talk part of his persona. In the early days after 11 September, he laced his speeches with Wild West imagery. The leader of al-Qa'ida and his followers were "wanted dead or alive". The posse would "smoke 'em out". Or, as he might put it now, they could "crawfish" all they wanted; America would "stiff" them just the same.
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