Being and Doing

The Sunday NYT thumbnails "Jeremy Scahill's muckraking book, 'Blackwater: the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,'" and specifies two contributions to the language:

"Going Blackwater" refers to the soldiers who flee the armed forces to work for better-paying private security firms. And Scahill employed "keeping your noun alive" this way: "Blackwater guys ... were known for being very, very aggressive, and the whole point of their operation is to keep their noun alive, and their noun was Paul Bremer." It's now Zalmay Khaizad, and so they're going to do everything it taskes not to lose the noun." In other words: You're nobody these days unless you're somebody's noun.

--TBR: Inside the List, New York Times Sunday Book Review 26, April 8, 2007