A lesson in electrocution
- Thread starter donrkebab
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As most threads on here do!
'Electrical execution', I assume.
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It's one of those words where "the meaning changed". There are countless such words in the English language. It was originally coined to mean that, but quickly encompassed accidental death by electric shock, and for a long time retained the crucial element of death. For a long time it did not mean simply electric shock.
But people began to use it to mean that.
Change in the way words are used is inevitable, and in principle to be welcomed.
However, IIRC a large amount of the dissatisfaction over this change was the speed with which dictionaries recognised the changed use (although I believe that not all have - certainly Oxford was a trailblazer). Dictionaries are in a difficult position, and another facet of the dissatisfaction was due to ignorance of their role as describers not prescribers.
But dictionaries do have an important role as prescribers as well as describers, and with the much wider spread of education and literacy in modern times compared to the past, and the existence and wide availability of dictionaries it becomes harder, IMO, to justify the acceptance of changes. New words, yes. Colloquial/slang uses of words? A guarded "yes". We don't seem to struggle to understand what someone means by "wicked" if we pay attention to the context, but are we better off, is the English language better off, because of the change in what "gay" means? We do need an amount of rigour in a list of word meanings so that we can all be sure that we say what we mean and we mean what we say, and be sure that our readers and listeners are using the same meanings.
We already had the term "electric shock". There was no need to start using "electrocution" to also mean only that, and it was a damaging change because it took away the aspect of fatality. It added nothing to the language, it facilitated the description of nothing but it did mean that people had to start adding and clarifying when they needed to impart the information that the shock was fatal.
Given the aforementioned ubiquity of education and dictionary existence it is hard to argue that the very first person to say "electrocuted" when he meant a non-fatal electric shock was anything other than simply wrong. The second person also. But clearly there comes a point where dictionaries as describers have to recognise a changed use.
In this case I think that they (some of them?) did it far too early, and in general I think they should "resist" changes like that by adding things like "sometimes/increasingly/often incorrectly used to also mean ...." to the definitions. So for example we might have seen, in an earlier age, something along the lines of
Lavatory. A place or a vessel for washing oneself. Increasingly incorrectly used to mean a toilet or a room, building or cubicle containing a toilet or toilets.
But people began to use it to mean that.
Change in the way words are used is inevitable, and in principle to be welcomed.
However, IIRC a large amount of the dissatisfaction over this change was the speed with which dictionaries recognised the changed use (although I believe that not all have - certainly Oxford was a trailblazer). Dictionaries are in a difficult position, and another facet of the dissatisfaction was due to ignorance of their role as describers not prescribers.
But dictionaries do have an important role as prescribers as well as describers, and with the much wider spread of education and literacy in modern times compared to the past, and the existence and wide availability of dictionaries it becomes harder, IMO, to justify the acceptance of changes. New words, yes. Colloquial/slang uses of words? A guarded "yes". We don't seem to struggle to understand what someone means by "wicked" if we pay attention to the context, but are we better off, is the English language better off, because of the change in what "gay" means? We do need an amount of rigour in a list of word meanings so that we can all be sure that we say what we mean and we mean what we say, and be sure that our readers and listeners are using the same meanings.
We already had the term "electric shock". There was no need to start using "electrocution" to also mean only that, and it was a damaging change because it took away the aspect of fatality. It added nothing to the language, it facilitated the description of nothing but it did mean that people had to start adding and clarifying when they needed to impart the information that the shock was fatal.
Given the aforementioned ubiquity of education and dictionary existence it is hard to argue that the very first person to say "electrocuted" when he meant a non-fatal electric shock was anything other than simply wrong. The second person also. But clearly there comes a point where dictionaries as describers have to recognise a changed use.
In this case I think that they (some of them?) did it far too early, and in general I think they should "resist" changes like that by adding things like "sometimes/increasingly/often incorrectly used to also mean ...." to the definitions. So for example we might have seen, in an earlier age, something along the lines of
Lavatory. A place or a vessel for washing oneself. Increasingly incorrectly used to mean a toilet or a room, building or cubicle containing a toilet or toilets.
It's not only 'lay' usage. There is a significant (albeit fairly small) amount of medical literature 'out there' which is about "non fatal electrocution".
Such a thing is frowned upon in certain US States.
There are people in every walk of life who do not know what they are talking about.
Do we correct such things or have the language determined by the idiots?
Heard on the BBC local election coverage loast night:
"The independent candidates who include defectees from ...".
I was merely reporting what is 'out there', not commenting about it or about anything we should 'do about it'.
If, as you seem to be implying, you feel that we should 'correct' such things, how would you suggest that we should 'correct' the title (and a good few occurrences in text) of, for example, this paper (which is one of many)? ...
Kind Regards, John
Perhaps someone who has dealings with official documents and does know will have it corrected.
He would, though, probably be greeted with responses of "Does it matter, we all know what it really means?".
Perhaps there is no hope and that is why they have Trump and we look to be heading in the same direction.
He would, though, probably be greeted with responses of "Does it matter, we all know what it really means?".
Perhaps there is no hope and that is why they have Trump and we look to be heading in the same direction.
I would think that attempting to change the title of a paper that had been published best part of 2 years ago (and probably widely distributed and 'indexed' at that time) would almost certainly do more harm than good.
I think that any campaign you want to run would really have to be prospective, rather than retrospective!
Kind Regards, John
Then we just have to accept Dumb and Dumber ruling the language.
Perhaps we need an orthography department.
Perhaps we need an orthography department.
How soon before we have plumb pies..... maybe even plumers installing pipes
i wood of fought it wuz soon
They could keep the various parts in neatly arranged draws.
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