The term “false flag operation” has been flying frequently during the past few years, most recently in reference to the Ukraine crisis. Some analysts suspect the Russians might concoct a pretext for invading Ukraine by conducting a false flag operation. This could involve pretending to be Ukrainian saboteurs or staging and filming a fake Ukrainian attack on Russian troops.
Whence “false flag”?
Oddly enough, while the term is most often associated with smugglers or buccaneers who changed their ships’ flags to deceive other vessels — “Argghh, matey, strike the Jolly Roger, and hoist the Union Jack!” — its first known use involved papists, not pirates.
It first appeared, in of all places, a 1559 religious tract titled, “A Warning Agaynst the Dangerous Practices of Papists,” where it was used figuratively with no maritime reference: “Of this sort was Gardiner that abused K. Henry with a false flagge of religion.”
But the next recorded use of “false flag,” in another diatribe against the Holy See, suggests the phrase originated wholly at sea. In a sermon published in 1689, George Halley described Roman Catholicism as “a Religion that acts in disguise and masquerade, changes frequently its colours, and puts out a false Flag to conceal the Pyrate.” Ahoy!
The phrase apparently took a deep dive during the 1700s and didn’t surface again in print until 1824, when a Washington, D.C., newspaper described the inspection of merchant vessels sailing under foreign flags: “The boarding officers must, in their discretion, decide, whether this be a true or false flag.”
For the past 200 years, “false flag” has appeared often in print, in both its maritime and metaphoric senses. A Google N-gram search shows huge spikes in the use of “false flag” during the 1860s, 1910s and 1940s, presumably in references to military deception during the U.S. Civil War and the two World Wars.
(Given Russia’s current threat to Ukraine, it’s worth noting that in 1939 the Soviet Union, seeking an excuse to invade Finland, shelled one of its own villages and blamed it on the Finns.)
The use of “false flag” also spiked sharply in 2001, most likely because conspiracy crackpots used it to describe the 9/11 attacks, which they alleged had been perpetrated by the U.S. government. Thanks to similar theories about the Boston Marathon bombings, school shootings and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, “false flag” still waves prominently o’er the language of the free and the home of the rave.
Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His new book, “Mark My Words,” is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.
