Securing Electricity Meter Cupboard

[ban-all-sheds]

Which?

 

[JohnW2]

And anyway - you did not answer my question. ... Was the first person to say "electrocute" when he did not mean a fatal electric shock making a true mistake, a change which unnecessarily introduced confusions and ambiguities, or was he initiating a valid evolutionary change in what the word meant?

To a large extent, you are preaching to the converted with this example. I would start by pointing out that it is probably incredibly unusual (if it happens at all) for someone to deliberately initiate an evolutionary change - such changes invariably result from the proliferation of something which, at least technically, was initially a 'true mistake'.

Anyway, the answer to your question is that I would regard it as a 'true mistake'. I would actually go further and say that the first person to use the word to refer to an accidental fatal electric shock also made a 'true mistake' (and a necessary precursor to the second true mistake - since the word would probably never have been used to mean "accidental non-fatal electric shock" if it had not first, in error, come to be used to mean "accidental fatal electric shock").

As you say, the change which resulted from this initial mistake (both initial mistakes) has had a detrimental effect on clarity of communication, so I think it unfortunate that it ever happened. However, that does not alter what has actually happened (been allowed to happen) ....

Since neither of the 'initial mistakes' was 'hit on the head' at the time, those 'mistakes' came to be perpetuated, ultimately resulting in the situation in which a very substantial number of people were using the word 'incorrectly'. In other words, 'evolution' had occurred (had been allowed to occur, if you wish). Once that had happened, it became the duty of dictionaries to document the 'new' usage that was being used by a substantial number of people. They could have deprecated that usage if they so wished (although that begs the question of who is actually entitled to set themselves up as the guardian of the English language), but they nevertheless have a duty to document any usage of a word when it reaches some threshold of usage.

If you or anyone else wants to prevent a particular 'evolution' of language (perpetuation of an initial mistake), they can only do so at the very earliest stages. If they do not (successfully) eliminate the error before it starts proliferating, then evolution occurs, and is generally irreversible. There comes a time when the extent of 'new usage' is such that it simply has to be 'accepted', even though it will usually have started with a 'mistake' ....

"Nice" has been mentioned a few times. I recall that, 60 or so years ago, the teachers in my primary school were already 'going on about it'. During the ensuing 60 years, I have probably seen or heard the word used 'incorrectly' nearly every day, but only very very rarely have I seen or heard it being used with its 'correct' meaning - yet people still 'go on about it'.

Have we not reached the stage at which the meaning (of "nice") that has been used by almost everyone for decades should be 'accepted'? If dictionaries today contained only the 'correct' meaning, then virtually everyone looking up the word (to find out what it 'meant') would find only an answer which made no sense, and would be unhelpful, in relation to the way in which they had seen/heard the word being used.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

So what's the typical conductivity of a damp concrete floor - say in a bathroom ? Is that enough to cause a dangerous current to flow through someone stepping out of the bath/shower with wet bare feet and touching a tap ?

It would probably be a pretty low-impedance, possibly pretty dangerous, route to earth. ... However, I would think it must be extremely rare to have a ground floor bathroom with a concrete floor built straight onto earth with no DPM or suchlike, and with absolutely no floor covering. The moment one has virtually any floor covering (or any 'anti-damp' measures in, or under, the concrete), the path to earth probably usually becomes high enough for any current through a person not to be, in itself, particularly dangerous.

OK, I’ve done my best to ‘do the experiment’ ....

Most of my cellar has a floor of (in many cases cracked) unglazed quarry tiles, about 1 cm thick, laying directly on soil and, at this time of year, they are decidedly ‘very wet’. I have just tried putting a roughly 9” square of copper sheet on the wettest part, weighed down (for ‘good contact’) with a sledge hammer.

By various nefarious means (details of which I will not describe here!) I have estimated that the resistance of the path to earth through this plate is about 10.4 kΩ (when measured at ~240V AC). If one adds on a notional 1 kΩ for body resistance, this would equate to a current of about 20.2 mA through a person who was standing on this floor with bare feet and touching a 230V source.

That’s certainly more than high enough a current to be worried about, but it has to be realised that this figure relates to a situation which is probably far ‘worse’ than one would ever be likely to encounter in almost any real-world bathroom. In the presence of even the slightest apology for 'floor covering' (and/or any 'anti-damp' measures under the tiles), it is likely that the current would fall to an extremely low, quite probably 'negligible', figure.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

To a large extent, you are preaching to the converted with this example.

Since that is the only example I have mentioned in this topic, and you've seen what has happened to me as a result, I advise you to be careful in saying that it was a mistake, and should perhaps have been "hit on the head" early on, for (if he is consistent and unbiased) you will attract criticism and mockery from JohnD for suggesting it.

I would start by pointing out that it is probably incredibly unusual (if it happens at all) for someone to deliberately initiate an evolutionary change - such changes invariably result from the proliferation of something which, at least technically, was initially a 'true mistake'.

You may be right, but I think you are probably wrong - I don't think that it is incredibly unusual for for slang usage to arise by mistake - I feel that words are usually deliberately taken and a new usage/meaning added to them. I wonder what mistake it could have been, for example, which made "gay" come to mean homosexual?

Anyway, the answer to your question is that I would regard it as a 'true mistake'. I would actually go further and say that the first person to use the word to refer to an accidental fatal electric shock also made a 'true mistake' (and a necessary precursor to the second true mistake - since the word would probably never have been used to mean "accidental non-fatal electric shock" if it had not first, in error, come to be used to mean "accidental fatal electric shock").

Hmm. Not sure about that. True, it was originally coined because we needed a word for executing people with an electric chair, but we also needed a word for a fatal electric shock. We don't seem to have a problem with "shot", "hanged", "decapitated" etc being used for both judicial and extra-judicial killings, nor accidental deaths, so I'm unconvinced that we should not have started to use "electrocute" in the same way. Yes, the type of link which there is between "execute" and "electrocute" is not there with those other words, and maybe it would have been better if we'd opted for one of the alternative proposals instead of "electrocute", such as "electromort", but we didn't, and TBH I don't see how using "electrocute" to refer to an accidental death could have a detrimental effect on communication, as it's hard to see how someone being told about a person being electrocuted would mistakenly think they'd been executed after having been found guilty of a capital offence.

As you say, the change which resulted from this initial mistake (both initial mistakes) has had a detrimental effect on clarity of communication, so I think it unfortunate that it ever happened. However, that does not alter what has actually happened (been allowed to happen)

It is the relatively recent change of "electrocute" being used to mean a non-fatal electric shock which concerns me. And I think it is relatively recent, as so far only one dictionary recognises it.

Since neither of the 'initial mistakes' was 'hit on the head' at the time, those 'mistakes' came to be perpetuated, ultimately resulting in the situation in which a very substantial number of people were using the word 'incorrectly'. In other words, 'evolution' had occurred (had been allowed to occur, if you wish).

But in this case we had an opportunity to hit it on the head at the time, and I wish we had. Or possibly still do, if other dictionaries don't follow suit. It was not a good or useful evolutionary change. Whereas the chances of someone not knowing, 120-odd years ago, if "Did you hear about Fred? He got electrocuted" meant he'd been executed by the state or meant he'd received a fatal electric shock in some other way were probably pretty small, now we have the problem that you don't know if Fred is dead or alive. It was/is all so unnecessary. We did not need to take a word which meant "fatal electric shock" and strip "fatal" from it, leaving us with no word for the fatal version, just because people were too lazy to deal with 2 more letters and the same number of syllables by carrying on saying "electric shock".

Once that had happened, it became the duty of dictionaries to document the 'new' usage that was being used by a substantial number of people.

I think the haste with which the OED gave in to the ignorant/lazy was shameful.

They could have deprecated that usage if they so wished (although that begs the question of who is actually entitled to set themselves up as the guardian of the English language)

Guardian? Or authoritative documentation of correct usage? No way should any dictionary be allowed to control what words people are or are not allowed to say, but there is nothing wrong with a mistake which has a wholly negative effect remaining de facto a mistake for ever.

but they nevertheless have a duty to document any usage of a word when it reaches some threshold of usage.

How many people have to start calling that troublesome male organ the prostrate before we change the medical dictionaries, anatomy training etc?

I would say that's really rather different, since it's just the case of an error/ misunderstanding on the part of many people

It was equally an error/misunderstanding on the part of everybody who used "electrocute" to mean a non-fatal electric shock until the new usage was endorsed by the dictionary(ies).

We do not operate on the Humpty Dumpty principle, and should not allow the anarchy of someone suddenly deciding to use an existing word to mean something which not one other person thinks it means, or (much worse) suddenly deciding that it no longer means what everybody else thinks it does, without them being told that they are wrong.

If you or anyone else wants to prevent a particular 'evolution' of language (perpetuation of an initial mistake), they can only do so at the very earliest stages. If they do not (successfully) eliminate the error before it starts proliferating, then evolution occurs, and is generally irreversible. There comes a time when the extent of 'new usage' is such that it simply has to be 'accepted', even though it will usually have started with a 'mistake' ....

No it doesn't.

I give you prostrate.

If a mistake adds nothing and takes away something, there's no reason why it should not be regarded as a mistake for ever.

"Nice" has been mentioned a few times. I recall that, 60 or so years ago, the teachers in my primary school were already 'going on about it'.

50-odd years ago my secondary school English master used to "go on about it", but IIRC it was because he thought using it was lazy, not because it meant something other than what we all thought it meant.

During the ensuing 60 years, I have probably seen or heard the word used 'incorrectly' nearly every day, but only very very rarely have I seen or heard it being used with its 'correct' meaning - yet people still 'go on about it'.

Do they?

And what is its "correct" meaning? Foolish? Stupid? Wanton? Lascivious? Ostentatious? Neat? Elegant? Dainty? Strange? Rare? Extraordinary? Slothful? Lazy? Effeminate? Unmanly? Pampered? Luxurious? Coy? Shy? Reluctant? Unwilling? Fastidious? Scrupulous? Punctilious? [In terms of column-inches, those cover 20-25% of the entries in the Shorter OED. Apologies - I CBA to type out any more]. Interestingly, "neat, elegant, dainty" dates from around the 15th century.

The one JonhD picked on:

... "Nice" now means pleasant (although it used to mean precisely balanced)

is late 16th century.

Have we not reached the stage at which the meaning (of "nice") that has been used by almost everyone for decades should be 'accepted'?

If by that you mean the meaning "agreeable, pleasant, delightful, friendly" etc, it's been more than decades - that meaning is 300 years old.

If dictionaries today contained only the 'correct' meaning, then virtually everyone looking up the word (to find out what it 'meant') would find only an answer which made no sense, and would be unhelpful, in relation to the way in which they had seen/heard the word being used.

And what is its "correct" meaning? .....

 

[EFLImpudence]

I fail to see any logic in that response considering everything else that has been written unless it just happens to be one which you would not like to see become the norm.

Error and misunderstanding are the exact things being opposed (by two of us) so why would the dictionary (according to your view) not have a responsibility to include that error/misunderstanding?

 

[bernardgreen]

How long before news readers ( or their script writers ) make hyperthermic the "correct" description for someone whose body temperature is dangerously low.

For those already converted , hyperthermic = too HOT hypothermic = too COLD

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Why news readers or script writers, pacifically?

 

[JohnW2]

Where on earth did that come from?? - certainly not this thread, and since you've included it as an image (as have I), the 'links' don't work.

I fail to see any logic in that response considering everything else that has been written unless it just happens to be one which you would not like to see become the norm. ... Error and misunderstanding are the exact things being opposed (by two of us) so why would the dictionary (according to your view) not have a responsibility to include that error/misunderstanding?

It's just a 'spelling mistake', presumably originating from the fact that some people don't pronounce the word "prostate" clearly enough or other people do not listen carefully enough to what is being said/pronounced.

Although guides to grammar and language usage, and "dictionaries of confusables", do, standard dictionaries do not generally mention 'spelling mistakes' (even iof they are common) - I imagine not the least because there are an astronomical number of possible spelling mistakes. I suppose that, to be exhaustive and to maximise usefulness, dictionaries should mention such things (whilst indicating that they were just plain wrong) - but they don't. If they did, one would certainly expect to see mention of things like there/their/they're etc. - but, again, one doesn't.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

'spelling mistakes' (even iof they are common)

 

[JohnW2]

It is important to be precise ... spelling mistakes and typing mistakes are not the same thing!

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

No, but (although not in this case) it's not always possible for the reader to tell which it is.

As an even more egregious digression, am I the only one who sometimes looks at the list of suggestions offered by a spelling checker, and wondered WOE the person who wrote it did not consider the possibility that the writer may have simply hit a key vertically, horizontally or diagonally adjacent to one which he should have?

 

[EFLImpudence]

Where on earth did that come from??

It came from the post above mine. I couldn't find the original - fourteen pages?

How can the spoken word be a spelling mistake? It is the wrong word.

If written, then 'prostait' would be a spelling mistake; prostrate is the wrong word, meaning something completely different, and being used in error through ignorance which is exactly what we are discussing.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Where on earth did that come from??

It came from the post above mine. I couldn't find the original - fourteen pages?

You're both free to click on the little ↑ to be taken to the original, if you want...

 

[EFLImpudence]

Oh. I didn't know that. Today has not been in vein.

 

[JohnW2]

It came from the post above mine. I couldn't find the original - fourteen pages?

If you mean BAS's 'endless' one, I didn't bother reading it!

How can the spoken word be a spelling mistake? It is the wrong word.

I agree, which is why I put "spelling mistake" in quotes. However, I couldn't think of an appropriate word /phrase for the 'verbal' equivalent of a spelling mistake.

Those, who had misunderstood what they'd heard (maybe because it wasn't pronounced clearly enough) and hence think the word is "prostrate" would presumably spell it like that if they were writing.

Kind Regards, John