Shot dead

Nick Cohen's book, You can't read this book is good on freedom of speech apparently (according to reviews). I haven't read it yet but I intend to.

last word and no returns!

Right oh back, but you'll need to add something else just so you can have the last word (until the next last word anyhow; you know what GN is like).

Right o.

It is not limited by emotions.

Anyway, freedom of speech allows bad taste. It allows all tastes. That's why it's free.

OK. Timing certainly IS the thing. I agree. The problem is that one of us thinks timing should stop us talking about certain phrases, and the other thinks that the timing of a certain event is what brought this to mind and, having it in mind, she began to talk about it. What, actually, is wrong about that? Why does talking about language at any particular time, in relation to a particular event (or not), matter?

Logically, it doesn't. Only emotionally. I'm sorry if you cannot separate the emotion from the thoughts about language. I can and so can some others. So we do, and we act upon it. There is nothing wrong with that even if you and others think there is.

I do understand what you mean. I repeat, timing is the thing here.

I will only leave a thread if GNHQ tells me too. And I don't think that's going to happen.

Oh!! Bad taste! I seeee!! Right carry on disapproving then. Me accused of bad taste by you. Ha! Sorry, but that really is ironic.

So, while you're disapproving, can you just leave us to get on with it, there's a dear? I really don't mind you disapproving of anything I do, but I do mind youninterfering with something you clearly don't understand and don't want to understand.

So what, jings? So bloody what? You just don't get it about detached logical thinking and anguish about a tragedy happening at the same time in the same mind, do you? That's fine, but do you really need to keep telling us that limitation when we want to discuss something else?

I hate pedantry, but that has nothing to do with my agreeing that this thread was in bad taste. The worst in fact.

Oh Elegran! It was obvious what the original poster was thinking of!

Why not start a soaps thread? There are threads on just about everything else.

Soaps? I wish there was one.....

I agree with the point of your post, though, Elegran. I think in cases such as this people's emotions can sometimes overrule their common sense.

I've just looked at the original post, and see nothing about any specific shooting, just a general post about the way "shot to death" is used so often in place of "shot dead".

Why is anyone getting their knickers in a twist over a pedantic comment on the pedants' corner thread? Is it just a general dislike of pedantry? If so, the answer is the same as for those who don't like the subjects of other threads - knitting, Merlin, or soaps. Reading every thread is not compulsory.

Cheers, when!

Bags, I've just come back to this thread, or I would have leapt in to defend you sooner. Of course we pedants gather on threads like this to complain about the misuse of language. When I put in my tuppenceworth about "gunned down" it was, in fact, a shooting a few years ago in Scotland that I was thinking about. The poor man was shot, but in every report, he was "gunned down". My feelings about the American school shooting, or Dunblane or Hungerford, come to that, are quite irrelevant to this particular thread. Stick in there, girl, for freedom of speech. We shall not be moved!

Nurses for instance must act efficiently and accurately, and at the same time they have to be concerned for their patients, and moved by their suffering. If they cannot do both at once, they are not good at their job.

Yes, and being able to be concerned about several things at once, on different levels, and with differing amounts of emotional involvement attached to them, is an intellectual strength, not a failing. It's nothing to be ashamed of or to be criticised for.

I find my sadness becomes compounded by the crass phraseology sometimes used by journalists. The media is far reaching, and bears a responsibility in the written word (and often does, but not always), to honour and respect those that died.

Maybe editing needs to be more robust, but in the rush to go to press, slack comments, for whatever reason, are overlooked I fear. This tragedy deserves better.

What on earth is the yellow press ??

Actually for me it is not possible to be as horrified and sad as I was over the Connecticut shooting and at the same time be annoyed at phraseology used by reporters.

I rather like the phrase 'shot to death' which I find more poetic than shot dead. Sometimes it is appropriate to be poetic.

We say bludgeoned to death, stabbed to death, bored to death, so why not shot to death?

Lastly, why are we assuming that newspaper reporters are not moved, even traumatised, by the events they are witnessing, maybe even if they work for the yellow press.

Jings disasters are a gift to the yellow press - they sell newspapers. Doesn't make them any better for those involved, or any less horrific to anyone else, but they do keep reporters in beer money! Or maybe keep the proprietors in champagne money.

It is perfectly possible to be appalled at the shooting and to be annoyed at how it has been reported. It is not either/or.

I remember when the Falklands war had just started. A friend and I went into the butchers, where she asked for corned beef, which was not on display. The whole queue blenched with horror - that morning an embargo had been announced on the import of Argentinian corned beef.

So to them she was clearly a traitor to be buying something which, it turned out - 1) - was already paid for by the shopkeeper, so he would be the one out of pocket if it did not sell - not the exporters, and 2) - did not come in this particular case from Argentina at all, but from a different South American country.

Should have left the hat off there. Habit has kicked in.