11-M en · PROPN
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish 11-M, an abbreviation of 11 March.
Meanings
-
(metonymically) The 2004 Madrid train bombings.
If the events took place on March 11 (like the public information phone number 3-1-1), perhaps the metonym wouldn’t be “3/11,” since it isn’t similarly visceral. (It’s worth noting that the Madrid train bombings, which took place on March 11, are known in Spain as “11-M” due to the country’s use of the date-before-month method of date formatting.)
2015 January 16, Rick Paulas, “The Linguistics of Tragedy”, in Pacific Standard, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025: