Codenames

Codenames and hashtags have much in common.

I was reading about some moron’s threat to poison baby food with 1080 and noticed that the investigation is named by the police as ‘Operation Concord’. I immediately wondered why that name? After all, when I think of Concord (pom) Concorde (frog) I think of a slim fast posh plane that explodes on takeoff. Was this name somehow relevant to the investigation? This got me thinking about the role of codenames and their potential.

Clearly there is a place for shorthand names. I presume it was a lot simpler for Hitler to say to his generals “Nach morgendlichem Tee würde ich am liebsten sofort in den Details für Operation Sea Lion” (after morning tea I would like to go over the details for Operation Sea Lion) rather than say “after morning tea I would like to go over details for invading England.” Hmmm hang on a minute, I might be onto something here. Maybe codenames aren’t more efficient at all, rather, they are used for no other reason than they are fun! The Police Operation to find Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen was called Operation Stockholm. I guess in Police briefing meetings it sounded way cooler for the detective in charge to clear his throat and announce the latest on “Operation Stockholm” rather than ‘Missing Swedes”. Likewise ‘Operation Huia’ sounds much cooler than ‘Bain Retrial’ (no relation by the way, but I do own a colourful jumper).

Having said that, it is important to distinguish between an Operation name and a Codename. Winston Churchill needed a codename for the D-Day landings so that the Germans could have no idea what was planned. Hence radio waves crackled with ‘Operation Overlord’, and not ‘Normandy Landings’ – that may have given the Germans a bit of a heads up.

Unfortunately, part of the human condition is that people cannot resist creating codenames that hint at their intent. For example, the sustained bombing on Vietnam was call ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’. Now I’m not Vietnamese but I imagine that I might have twigged that ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ might be something to do with loud bad things coming at me from the sky. The Americans should probably have called it Operation Fairybreath – that would have fooled them.

Interestingly (and this is interesting) the hashtag phenomenon has taken the psychology of codenames to a new level. What happens now is that when somebody writes something they summarise the items purpose with a relevant hashtag (#hashtag). A piece on Facebook describing someone’s holiday to France may finish with things like #croissant, #frogland, or #notcominghome. This phenomenon of a shorthand that encapsulates the purpose and essence of something is now as ubiquitous as breasts on Baywatch. If Hitler were around today he would be emailing his Generals with all the finer details of invading Britain and end it with #chipsforlunch. Likewise, Operation Overlord would be #Hilterwecomingforyou or #sausagetime.

Anyway, my point is that we now use codenames or shorthand by way of hashtags for everything. I’m not sure where this trend will lead, but at the very least it adds colour and humour to life. In much the same way that the search for aliens is known as #whataloadofcrap.

Richard A. Bain
Self confessed codebreaker