A nation tries out names for its darkest day, and 9-11 seems to stick

ATLANTA - There has always been a shorthand for American disaster: Three Mile Island. Oklahoma City. Pearl Harbor. <br> <br> Now the nation appears to be settling on &#39;&#39;9-11&#39;&#39; -- pronounced ``nine-eleven,&#39;&#39; not ``nine-one-one&#39;&#39; -- for the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. <br> <br> English professor Wayne Glowka says, ``Nine-eleven is easy to say. It means the date, but it means a whole complex of things -- how we think, how we act, how we feel. There&#39;s a whole nine-eleven attitude.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Language experts say the term offers clues to how the country is coping with the disaster. <br> <br> A Stanford University linguist, Geoffrey Nunberg, says placing a sort of slang on the destruction wrought by the hijackers is one way of putting the tragedy in perspective and moving on. There&#39;s a need to package things, to label them, to get a handle on them.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> In a prime-time news conference just a month after the attacks, President Bush referred eight times to ``September eleventh.&#39;&#39; But earlier this month, he said: ``Our economy was hurt by the attacks on nine-eleven. <br> <br> The American Dialect Society, which monitors changes in the English language, declared ``nine-eleven&#39;&#39; its word of the year for 2001. <br> <br> A professor at Georgia College and State University and chairman of the society&#39;s new word committee, Glowka said ``There&#39;s just no better way to refer to it. To call it `the terrorist attacks&#39; -- that falls flat for some reason. It&#39;s too vague, I guess. There have been other terrorist attacks, but certainly none so memorable.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Language experts say there is no way to trace exactly who is responsible for the term. Some point to the president, others to the teen-agers who often shape American slang. The cable news networks might have played a role, too. On the ``crawls&#39;&#39; that began appearing on T-V screens after the attacks, &#39;&#39;9/11&#39;&#39; takes up precious little space.