CULTURE WATCH : Words of the Week, the Sequel

The Persian Gulf War added words to our language and gave new meanings to some old ones. (In a previous column, we explored Mother of All Battles and its verbal offspring.)

Although some war words quickly returned to the obscurity of military briefing rooms, others are still familiar a year later.

Before the war, who, besides a few military experts, had ever heard of a Scud ? Patriots referred more to people than to missiles.

Military food was an easy target. Meals, Ready-to-Eat --or MREs-- became affectionately known as Meals Rejected by Everyone.

Saudi Champagne, in a country where alcoholic beverages are prohibited under Muslim law, was a mixture of Perrier and apple juice.

The military penchant for alphabet soup was also evident. There were SLAMs, SAMs and HARMs-- stand-off land attack missiles, surface-to-air missiles and high-speed anti-radar missiles.

The familiar jeep was replaced by a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle or Humvee (below) . The sun became a heat tab.

The horror of war is often lost, however, in the Pentagonese. In the Gulf, attacks by smart bombs on target-rich environments became assertive disarmament. And the precise amount of collateral damage, an antiseptic term used to describe civilians killed or injured in military attacks, may never be known.

But many words that acquired military definitions have returned to their more pedestrian origins. Wart hogs are again animals, not attack planes. And Triple-A once again more often refers to the auto club than to anti-aircraft artillery.