"Teddy was involved in the death of 2 women," therefore his assassination was "karmic"? Let's see. Cheney, Rumsfeld, et alia have been "involved in the death" of over 3000 US military personnel, so their assassinations would simply be "karmic"? The provocativeness of such a statement only underscores the provocativeness of the original. Neither belongs here.
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- David
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” -- Oscar Wilde -
Oh, fer cryin out loud, guys. Cut it out.
JRJRComment
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Can it be both sad AND tragic?
As language isn't a dead thing, we expand both our words and their meanings, hence more dictionary terms get added.
But while the death of a child is sad, it is a child who has begone to fullfil their potential, to make a difference in both others lives and society, that I commonly hear as both sad AND tragic (tragic being the loss of potential to family/society).She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.Comment
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Jeff, the terms I hate hearing on the news are Deadly and Fatal.
"A deadly fire took 23 lives today"
All fires are deadly, as they have the potential to cause death. This fire was fatal, as it caused death.
Newscasters don't seem to know the difference between the two words.
A deadly car accident vs. a fatal car accident.
Now that's Tragic.
Mike
Lakota's Dad
If at first you don't succeed, deny you were trying in the first place.Comment
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I like David(Crokett)'s definition, fits with how I'd use it - '...a child died - it's not just sad, it's tragic...'.
In other words, tragic is a much larger impact than sad. So yes, the way media uses it, is many times over the top.
So, to recap :
Lost all money - sad; wife left you - sad; wife eloped with neighbor - serves him right!
Thieves wipe me out - sad; they take my HVLP sprayer - tragic; insurance pays me more than it's worth - sorry, where was I going with this...?It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- AristotleComment
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Because our culture no longer spends much time reading we have lost a bit of our vocabulary and, hence, its proper useage. This has led to words being mispronounced as well as terms being contorted and reused for other purposes. Presently, commonly used sports terms are 'seed' and 'seeded'. This is a *******izaton of ranking the position of concert musicians by their skills. This earns them a particular 'seaT' in their section. Thus, you speak of them as being seated (or, their seat being) as first chair, first trumpet or first chair (second chair, etc), second (or third) trumpet; each instrument generally having three sections and as many seats per section as needed.Jeff, the terms I hate hearing on the news are Deadly and Fatal.
"A deadly fire took 23 lives today"
All fires are deadly, as they have the potential to cause death. This fire was fatal, as it caused death.
Newscasters don't seem to know the difference between the two words.
A deadly car accident vs. a fatal car accident.
Now that's Tragic.
Just my two cents.Blessings,
Chiz
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Seriously? That's where "seed" came from? How sad ...
I tend to argue for proper use of the language, resisting change for the sake of change or, worse, laziness; but in this case a search of AskOxford.com turns up ...
tragic
adjective 1 extremely distressing or sad. 2 suffering extreme distress or sadness. 3 relating to tragedy in a literary work
... and that first definition is what I've always thought the word meant to modern ears, and it reflects my own usage. To use the specific examples Jeff cited, I would agree that the death of his father was sad, but not tragic; he was an adult man of 60, making his own choices, and his death -- although too early by most reckonings -- was still generally within the natural, expected order of things. But cancer in a child of two? Definitely tragic in my view. Things like that aren't supposed to happen -- not to someone that young, not to someone that innocent, not to someone who isn't old enough to comprehend what is going on.
And then there are things like the shootings at Virginia Tech last year. Those events were most certainly not of the victims' doing. Perhaps there's a better word to describe that day than "tragic," I don't know, but I do know that "sad" doesn't begin to say it.LarryComment
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okay boys and girls, for homework I would like you all to listen to Bill Engvall's segment on the word "Awesome".
Mike
Lakota's Dad
If at first you don't succeed, deny you were trying in the first place.Comment
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She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.Comment
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How about "commentate"?
Can't a commentator just comment?
Or administrate? Why doesn't an adminstrator administer?
It took me a day to even remember a couple of the many English-language usage issues I read and hear. I've become numb to them over the years.
JRJRComment
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One of my peeves is using: ". . . assassinated my character" instead of " . . . lied" about me. I usually laugh or at least smile when I hear such arrogant assumptions.
About 30 or 40 years ago in some article, I read about the trend of excessive use of superlatives for the normal, ordinary or common happenings, whether good or bad. This specific usage focused on the degeneration of communication and trust within a language rather than the changing of the language itself.Hank Lee
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted!
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I've usually heard this phrase in the middle of a long speech by a minor politician about why they did or didn't do something that wasn't popular, or ethical, or wise. It seems if you're going to state something that isn't going to play well you have to use a lot of words to cushion the blow.- Chris.Comment
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As this thread morphs into the many other abuse of words/language, I will throw in my two cents.
Hank Lee mentioned ''About 30 or 40 years ago in some article, I read about the trend of excessive use of superlatives for the normal, ordinary or common happenings, whether good or bad. This specific usage focused on the degeneration of communication and trust within a language rather than the changing of the language itself."
I certainly believe it. I am apalled when I hear someone using the word "rape" when referring to the price they paid for an item. "Hate" is another word that is so conveniently abused nowadays. It is generally expressed with a certain tone, and sometimes used facetiously, but many (most?) of the people using the word have no idea what hate truely is.
And on the lighter side, a big pet peeve is the abuse of pre-. People just think you can attach pre to the beginning of any word and it is good to go.
RussComment
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