Just like someone can’t be murdered and survive.

You didn’t get electrocuted by the light socket, you got shocked (assuming you survived).

Carry on.

At what point does a zap become a shock?

I'd never thought about this. Looking back at the etymology of the word, yes. it looks like the -cute suffix came from execute and the electro- is just the means of death.

nowadays, though, the definition (per google at least) includes injury. evolution of language at work, I suppose.

I learned that when I was five.
We had just moved into my grandfather's old house, as he moved into a "retirement community" (this was 1966, so....).
My dad had his childhood home remodeled before we moved in (I was oldest of 2 at the time).
I was playing in this garden area near the kitchen with a pair of linesman pliers (Hell, remember, I was 5, I don't know, but my grandfather had left most of his old tools in his basement workshop---he now lived less than 3 miles away).
I started digging through the mulch with the linesman's pliers, and lo and behold I found the buried electrical line to the remodeled garage about 100 feet from the house. I swear, to this day, almost 53 years later, I can remember the sensation from cutting into that electrical line. I have an extreme respect for electricity. And yes, I had the crap shocked out of me.
My mom saw me do this through the kitchen window, and always said she thought I had died when I did this.

Of course Google has to go and rain on my parade.

LOL, language always has a way around the rules.

Don't even get me started about flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing.

I'll bet you can be electroluxed and live.....

Kinda like a man getting hung to death

Shock/zap... quick.

Electrocuted... long, not being able to see and losing control of your body (not being able to stop it from happening).

I've experienced both (very lucky too still be here) and there is a MAJOR difference!

quote:

Originally posted by Copefree:
Just like someone can’t be murdered and survive.

You didn’t get electrocuted by the light socket, you got shocked (assuming you survived).

Carry on.

Ahhh, but you can also be electrocuted to death, then shocked back to life.

So what is the level of misuse that warrants changing the meaning of the word? Electrocute was coined by combining execute and electricity. The fact that “X”% of the population is too stupid to understand that and use the word to describe what is actually an electric shock doesn’t change the meaning of the word.

Is this another of the “self identify” bullshit things where anything can be everything because I or someone else says so?

Can “drowning” now mean getting wet but surviving? If someone throws a rock at me can I say I have been “shot”?


Oh great comet where art thou....

Reminds me of my personal favorite abuse of language - “I’ve died ____ times and they’ve brought me back.”

I’m not talking about an actual “near-death”, light at the end of the tunnel, seeing your body from the outside sort of thing. I’m talking about your heart stopped or even better - you were merely in a shockable rhythm - and successfully resuscitated. That’s not being dead, you idiot. I don’t care what the doctor told you (using simple words so he wouldn’t have to try to explain it a second time). I guarantee you that’s not what the EMS run sheet / op note / medical record says. Stop telling me you died.

-Rob

Maybe, BurtonRW, but 2 guys in our intern class resuscitated a man after the attending had already signed the death certificate. He walked out of the hospital with a signed death certificate on his chart.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Maybe, BurtonRW, but 2 guys in our intern class resuscitated a man after the attending had already signed the death certificate. He walked out of the hospital with a signed death certificate on his chart.

LOL. How long before the attending was able to show his face in the physicians' lounge after that?

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
I'll bet you can be electroluxed and live.....

My friend's daughter thought she was getting the "Lux" treatment at the hair salon. "Deluxe" ...

The salon vacuumed her hair into the Electrolux, rolled a hair band around it, called it a day ...

Shocking the way google asserts itself. Next we'll be paying they to predict armed outcomes and elections. No more fighting, campaigning, physical voting.

Fuck google.

If you were *electrified,* you were shocked and likely injured, but did not die.

If you were electrocuted, then hopefully your funeral was nice.

By the way, when was the word "installation" abandoned for the lazy version?

Consider myself a bit of a word-smith. I agree sometimes word meanings 'morph' into different versions.

I seem to remember 'overdose' inferred death from taking too much of something.

'Decimate' means to destroy 10% of - but we use it to mean 'utter destruction' of a force.

I love the war over 'clip' versus 'magazine'.

'drown' is another one - that means 'DEAD', correct?

And of course the good George Carlin IIRC famously ridiculed the term 'Near Miss'... don't you mean a 'near hit' ??

-----------------------------------------------

Been there, done that, I don't do 480 anymore.

You might want to as this young man...

Most of us who experimented with radios back in the tube days have been lucky enough to survive nasty shocks, unanticipated brushes with death, etc. Some did not.

One of the most significant changes wrought by the ubiquity of solid state is that one is seldom exposed to high voltages.