Is the word "chemtrail" a "term of art"?

A term of art is a term (or word or phrase) that can have a common meaning, but has a specific meaning in some particular context. It is often "technical jargon".

So "chemtrail".....as a portmanteau of "CHEMical" and "TRAIL" it can reasonably be assumed that any trail of chemicals, anywhere, is a "chemtrail".

However in the context of secret conspiracies, the term refers exclusively to long white trails from high flying aircraft that (cough) are generated, look and behave exactly like contrails.

From time to time someone tries to use the common-or-garden meaning to expand the "discussion" to include various chemical trails that are not long white lines from high flying aircraft - such as cloud seeding, pesticide/agricultural spraying, sounding rocket tracers, etc.

this misuse is quite common in various theories as an attempt to confuse or misrepresent an argument - perhaps the most common version is labeling scientific theories as "just a theory", whereas in science "theory" is a term of art that has a very specific meaning that is quite different from the common usage.

I think that's always going to be a problem when discussing chemtrails. While they will happily start threads posting photos of contrails, and talking of spraying grids which develop into a thick overcast etc etc ad nauseum, when you challenge this perception in any one of the threads their own definition suddenly changes with references to crop spraying, cloud seeding, agen orange and all sorts of other things that aren't even what the thread was started about.

Goes with the territory I suppose.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


the problem is that chemtrail proponents will not / cannot agree on what their alledged " chemtrails are

there are those out there that claim that the CO , hydrocarbon , oxides of nitrogen and sulphur and other by-products of jet fuel combustion make contrails = chemtrails

reply to post by ignorant_ape


Of course not......but pointing out the usual definition and dishonesty of attempts to broaden it is still a good thing IMO!

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


I don't see it...