romanr writes:
"The situation in Ukraine was pretty wild yesterday. Over twenty dead protesters have been reported, and many more have been injured. One student, a supporter of peaceful demonstrations and a participant in the riots, answers questions about the current situation in Ukraine."
[ED Note: Background on the Ukraine situation from the BBC.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kbahey on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:30AM
There was an attempt to build a trebuchet in Tahrir, during the uprising against Mubarak (Jan/Feb 2011). It did not work though.
A year and a half after the event, the Ministry of Interior (pretty much still the old regime) leaked alleged phone calls blaming this on Hamas, linking them to the Muslim Brotherhood. They could not get the lie right and called it a "slingshot".
Here is a picture [twitpic.com].
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 1) by Daniel Dvorkin on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:27PM
"Slingshot" seems to get applied to almost any pre-gunpowder weapon designed to throw something, with the exception of hand-held bows. I've heard it applied to slings, catapults, and ballistas.
Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
(Score: 1) by kbahey on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:33PM
In this context, no.
Slingshot has a specific meaning in Arabic, which is the thing David used against Goliath: the piece of rope with a cradle used to hurl stones.
The State Security Police in Egypt were just trying to blame the entire 2011 uprising on the Muslim Brotherhood, by linking them to the Palestinian Intifadas, hence Hamas, ...etc. so as to discredit all participants by rewriting history.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 1) by Daniel Dvorkin on Friday February 21 2014, @12:54AM
In English, that's a sling [wikipedia.org], not a slingshot [wikipedia.org]. Are they actually the same thing in Arabic? Anyway, my point was not to defend the incorrect use of the word to describe things that clearly aren't slingshots in any language, but to point out how common the error is.
Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
(Score: 1) by kbahey on Friday February 21 2014, @02:27AM
It is my mistake in translating then. I meant sling. Sorry ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].