I started this blog partly so that I wouldn’t be sending all my friends emails all the time. Then I didn’t get feedback on the blog, so I sent them emails again. Today I sent them this in an email because it wasn’t appropriate for the blog, and then I thought, “I’m going to put it on my blog, anyway.”
From Wikipedia
In the early 1980s, the Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in the Chicago area. Agents discovered that gay men sometimes referred to themselves as “friends of Dorothy.” Unaware of the historical meaning of the term, the NIS believed that a woman named Dorothy was at the center of a massive ring of homosexual military personnel. The NIS launched an enormous hunt for Dorothy, hoping to find her and convince her to reveal the names of gay servicemembers.[9]
You might be able to make an analogy linking this example to the need for speakers of Arabic in the intelligence agencies and State Department.
I’m imagining the interrogations.
“Come on now, sailor. We know who Dorothy is. You know who Dorothy is. Why not save us all a lot of time and tell us what we already know.”
“I’m telling you, it’s Dorothy Gale, from Kansas.”
“We’ve got her now!”
