Word of the Day, July 28

[Uadzit]

quisling • KWIZ-ling • noun

: one who commits treason : collaborator

Example Sentence:
The country is ruled by a puppet government composed of quislings.

Did you know?
Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian army officer who in 1933 founded Norway's fascist party. In December 1939, he met with Adolf Hitler and urged him to occupy Norway. Following the German invasion of April 1940, Quisling served as a figurehead in the puppet government set up by the German occupation forces, and his linguistic fate was sealed. Before the end of 1940, "quisling" was being used generically in English to refer to any traitor. Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and H. G. Wells used it in their wartime writings. Quisling lived to see his name thus immortalized, but not much longer. He was executed for treason soon after the liberation of Norway in 1945.  

[dantes_way]

An example of the word quisling in song lyrics:

Green Shirt by Elvis Costello

Theres a smart young woman on a light blue screen
Who comes into my house every night.
And she takes all the red, yellow, orange and green
And she turns them into black and white.

But you tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebodys gonna get it

Better cut off all identifying labels
Before they put you on the torture table

cause somewhere in the quisling clinic
Theres a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes
Shes listening in to the venus line
Shes picking out names
I hope none of them are mine

But you tease, and you flirt...

Never said I was a stool pigeon
I never said I was a diplomat
Everybody is under suspicion
But you dont wanna hear about that

cause you tease, and you flirt...

Better send a begging letter to the big investigation
Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

You tease, and you flirt...

You can please yourself but somebodys gonna get it