Few terrorist organisations have been labelled so variously as Daesh — or, as you may be more familiar with, ISIS, IS or ISIL. From this week the JC will be referring to the group as Daesh. As the Prime Minister argued this week, referring to it as Islamic State gives it a status it does not deserve, as do the other two acronyms. Daesh — derived from al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham — is not merely a form of acronym; sounding similar to the Arabic words Daes (“one who crushes something underfoot”) and Dahes (“one who sows discord”) it is also pejorative. Such fuss over nomenclature may seem trivial. But in a battle of ideas, words and their meaning matter.