Vintage Jet Slams Into Homes Near Air Show

"Crash Lander" wrote

Now you've gone and confused the whole issue! Did it "Slam" into the
house,
or did it "Smash" into the house?

I think the word the report was searching for, really, was "obliterated."
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

I think the word the report was searching for, really, was "obliterated."

Well, at least they didn't say "completely destroyed" or "partially
destroyed."

(Things are either destroyed or they're not. Otherwise, they might be
nearly-destroyed, heavily damaged, etc., but you still hear the media mangle
that one up.)

-c
((In the old days, "nauseous" meant you made other people sick, and
"nauseated" meant you felt sick. But Average American, not being the
sharpest collective knife in the drawer, dumbed the language down yet again
because they couldn't handle such multisyllabic complexity.))

Its like when people say "near miss." What they actually mean is "near
hit."

Its like when people say "near miss." What they actually mean is "near
hit."

No. There is no such thing as a "far hit". All hits are near... as
near as they can be. If you do not hit, you "nearly hit" but it is not
a "near hit'

However, misses come in many forms. You can miss by a mile (which is a
near miss in transatlantic aviation, and a far miss when diving into a
swimming pool). You can miss by inches, which is a near miss when
aviating and a far miss when doing brain surgery. None of these "nearly
missed", they most definately missed.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Near miss" despite the grammatical error, implies a hit: it nearly
missed. i.e. it hit.

"Nearly hit" is what people mean when they say "near miss."

"Near miss" despite the grammatical error, implies a hit: it nearly
missed. i.e. it hit.

"Near miss" is not a grammatical error, and it does not imply a hit. It
implies (in fact, it also declares) a miss - a non-impact.

I don't know of anybody that interprets "near miss" as a hit, and "near"
is not the same as "nearly".

When I got lost at the zoo, I nearly got near the alligator.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Skylune" wrote in message
lkaboutaviation.com...
"Near miss" despite the grammatical error, implies a hit: it nearly
missed. i.e. it hit.

"Nearly hit" is what people mean when they say "near miss."

Professors and editors have been going round and round about this forever.
It's one of those things where, at the end of the day, you just shrug it off
and say "The people have decided that 'near miss' means 'near hit' much as
the word 'awesome' now means 'cool' and 'hot.'")

-c

Yeah. I'm just picking up on what an English professor used to rant
about...

He also used to get on weathermens' cases and sportscasters. He got riled
up when an announcer would say the baserunner has "good speed" or when a
weather broadcaster would say "shower activity" instead of "rain."

(Since you are a journalist, you might like the old set of Edwin Newman
books, "Strictly Speaking" and "A Civil Tongue." Newman, correctly IMO,
has great criticism for those who wreck the language. )

Skylune wrote:
Its like when people say "near miss." What they actually mean is "near
hit."


No, near is modifying either miss or hit. A near hit means that you
actually had to hit something.

Matt

"gatt" wrote:


Well, at least they didn't say "completely destroyed" or "partially
destroyed."

(Things are either destroyed or they're not. Otherwise, they might be
nearly-destroyed, heavily damaged, etc., but you still hear the media mangle
that one up.)

Well, I don't think that kind of error is very unique. (g,d,&r)

(Things are either one of a kind (unique) or they are not. They may be
very unusual or nearly unique, but there are no degrees of
uniqueness.)

But I think you and I are on the losing side of the word purity
battle--incorrect usage repeated often enough becomes "common usage",
which in turn becomes "correct".

Same thing with using the ambiguous term "bi-annual" in place of
biennial.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.