What is mission creep? Where does the phrase come from?

Mission creep is when an original plan or objective is progressively widened by events on the ground.

Significantly the phrase has military origin

Originating in Somalia in 1993, the modern term “mission creep” became part of official U.S. Army vocabulary a decade later. Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations (February 2003) acknowledges two types of mission creep. The first occurs when “the unit receives shifting guidance or a change in mission for which the unit is not properly configured or resourced.” Lewis and Clark

In other words limited objective you start with expands to the point where it is no longer clear.

Mission creep has also been used to describe non-military matters - financial regulation for example.

The Dictionary of Military Terms

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58 countries list English as an official language - but not the UK. The world's lingua franca or second language is not, technically, the 'official' language of its birthplace. The de factoofficial language of the United Kingdom is English,[3][4] which is spoken by approximately 59.8 million residents, or 98% of the population, over the age of three.[1][2][10][11][12] An estimated 700,000 people speak Welsh in the UK,[13] an official language in Wales

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According Henry Hitchings Language Wars (2011) these nations do not currently have an official primary language: UK see hereUSAthough 20 states now have an official language — see hereAustralia 80% speak English but not officialPakistan Urdu became official language in 2015 but only spoken by 8% of population.EthiopiaAmharic is official language but most spoken is OromoSomaliaEritrea Costa Rica Why these countries?Read extended transcript on Medium

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