"Drones" vs "UAVs" -- What's Behind A Name?

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/should-we-call-them-drones-or-uavs

I can’t touch on this subject without quoting from George Orwell’s famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” in which Orwell argued that bland and needlessly complicated language was a political act—a symptom of attempts to cover up things. “Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them,” he wrote. Defending the English language against such obfuscatory usages, he argued, requires writers to:

• Use “the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning.”
• “Let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around.”
• “Never us a long word where a short one will do.”
• “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

All of which back up our decision to stick with the word “drones.” In light of the overseas uses of drone technology, it’s worth noting Orwell’s conclusion:

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.