US Army training exercise in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan (yes, there are swamps in Afghanistan.)
Deterge may sound like the act of diving into sewage, but as a matter of fact it means the opposite: deterge is to do with detergent, and means to wipe away or cleanse.
The trouble is that once we know that, poor deterge looks annoying as well as ugly: a particularly heavy-handed attempt to form a verb from a noun.
And if you're perfectly relaxed about those, well, then, comment me!*
Sunday Rest: deterge. This word has been around since the 1600s (as has the word detergent), and which came first is uncertain. They both come from the Latin tergēre, to wipe.
*Sorry.
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