As if the sheer horrors of the Hamas attacks on Israel weren’t bad enough, now someone has coined the expression ‘acoustic terrorism’. The Boston Globe reports that people living under an airport flight path claim they are victims of ‘acoustic terrorism’. Another example listed on the Word Spy website is those ‘boom cars’ (as they call them) playing their favourite music to everyone with half-a-kilometre’s radius – their thumping music is so loud the road seems to vibrate. Apparently any excessively loud noise that disturbs the peace is now being labelled ‘acoustic terrorism’. After 7 October I think people should be more careful what they label ‘terrorism’. Excessive noise is annoying, but terrorism it is not! Whoever coined the term ‘acoustic terrorism’ is guilty of a serious lapse of judgement.

However, it seems that evil boffins in the secret labs of the world’s terrorist nations have been working on something they call ‘acoustic weapons’. According to one news report, an acoustic device may have been used to attack State Department employees at the US Embassy in Havana. The device was so sophisticated it was outside the range of audible sound, and it was so damaging that one US diplomat now needs to use a hearing aid. For years, sound has been used as a non-lethal, yet potentially harmful, weapon. Around the world, different types of sonic devices have been used to incapacitate soldiers or workers. So, perhaps this new (or newish) expression ‘acoustic terrorism’ will one day pose a serious problem and be a major form of attack on Australian cities (perhaps used by those in our midst who seem to hate us).