That word "carnage"

[vilakins]

Media Watch last night criticised the exaggeration of news reports about Christchurch, and particularly the misuse of the word "carnage" which I objected to; vindicated! Because there weren't any deaths, let alone slaughter, as Media Watch put it.

Petrol-head Greg thinks the misuse of "carnage" comes from Formula 1 where they call every crash carnage, and I'm wondering if the "car" part is to blame. The reporter who used it in Christchurch was standing near a flattened car, but I really don't think he was thinking about that when he said it. I'm wondering what the general perception of that word is. So, a poll.

[Poll #1615401]
[Edit] Since I can't change a poll, add "with horrible injuries" to the last option. I kept it too simple. :-P

Comments

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

Your readership, at least, is not made of stupid.

[pebblerocker]

A high death toll involving animals with fangs!!!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Red in tooth and claw!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I clicked "high death toll," but what it really makes me think is, "bits of horrible bloody flesh everywhere."

Mind you, it can certainly be used metaphorically, but I agree with you: that particular usage is just wrong. Or massively, ridiculously hyperbolic, at the very least.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I tend to think of that too because of the flash origins of the word. If there really was carnage, I wouldn't be watching the news reports.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the etymology is definitely there in my head when I hear the word.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I meant flesh. Stupid typos.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

That's OK. I think I read "flesh" there, anyway. :)

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the etymology is definitely there in my head when I hear the word.

ditto, it's definitely the raw meat everywhere in my head

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Same. I definitely think of blood and bits of meat flying everywhere. They wouldn't call it a bloodbath or a massacre, damn it...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They do sometimes, but yeah, that's definitely what I think of. :-P

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

None of those; specifically a lot of bloody, flesh-rending injuries/deaths. (High death tolls accomplished by, say, lethal injection or a neat single gunshot per victim need not apply. That doesn't create the required "pile of bloody meat" effect.)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Me too, since "butchery" is one of the meanings, but I wanted to keep it a bit more general. And I wouldn't be watching the news reports had there really been carnage.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Yes, I went for four as the closest to my idea... But I would expect bucketfuls of blood.

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

I checked high death toll, but to me it also indicates a kind of horrible death by war or intent.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

To me it can happen with any origin, but there's death and injury.

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

I don't even think "A high death toll with horrible injuries" is really carnage. I'd want Massive destruction AND high death tolls (with or without massive injuries). Haiti quake? Yes. CC one? No.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah, but it's also carnage when a lot of people are massacred without property damage.

No carnage in Christchurch, no. It was stronger than the Haiti quake, but due to newer buildings being built to proper specs and most people being asleep, it was nowhere near as serious.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

That makes sense; I tell Americans from other states that they really have the wrong idea about earthquakes in California. With our building code *based* on earthquakes, and retrofittings of older designs, native Californians regard earthquakes as a minor thing except in the rarest of cases.
Nice to know our friends at the other edge of the ring of fire are likewise prepared.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[nods] The worst damage was due to liquefaction of swampy ground after a wet winter; there were mud and sand eruptions, and lots of damage to underground pipes and foundations.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

Figures. Same thing over here; wet ground, certain kinds of sandy or soft clay soils can create issues no engineering can fully compensate for. The ground in those areas moves in waves, iirc

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's the sideways movement that causes the damage, and there was a lot of that: 20 years' plate shift in a minute or so. Also the first quake set off two more at once, so there might have been some very complex waves there.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

None of the above, I see poor little Christians, or other social group disliked by the powers that be, being ripped to bloody shreds by a ravenous and probably psychotics group of big carnevours. But I chose the last as closest to it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Someone else associated it with animals too; interesting! Perhaps there's a novel or history about early Christians that uses it.

[pebblerocker]

Simpler than that for me: it sounds like carnivore.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Which means flesh-eater in Latin, so carnage is, well, fleshage. Eew. And it's hard to say as well.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed carnage being particularly heavily used in an F1 context; BUT I have seen it in punning titles of car-related DVDs presented by the likes of Jeremy Clarkson. Car-mageddon and Car-nage and so forth. Maybe it has bled into popular use in the carworld from that sort of thing.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

:-) I wouldn't be surprised if news reports of bad crashes also had some effect.

Or it's probably just being used in the general destruction sense in F1. I don't know much about it, not watching it myself.

[nautile26.livejournal.com]

I went with the edited final choice of "A high death toll with horrible injuries", but I have noticed the term being used for general destruction, and the 20-somethings seem to use the term "total carnage" as a description of the fallout of a heavy drinking session, ie a colossal hangover.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Or maybe it's a graphic description of the second view of their last meal. :-P

[blencathra.livejournal.com]

Definitely a high death toll with bits of gubbins hanging out all over the place.

Doesn't make me think of cars at all but there again I can't stand Top Gear etc.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'll watch some of it, but I refuse to watch the supercar rich boys' toys crap.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I've seen carnage applied to multi-vehicle crashes in motor races, where it's much easier to see instantly that bits are flying of cars than whether any of the drivers are injured (and modern racubg cars being what they are, generally no one ends up in hospital). So I think the metaphor works there, but not as a general description of extensive damage where it's already known that there are no major casualties.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

To me it implies bodies strewn everywhere. I've seen it applied to motorway crashes though with more accuracy (and I don't read further).

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I think in my example, the term is used because the amount of damage that can be seen implies that the drivers ought to be equally damaged (and would have been if they'd been driving the racing cars of 20 - 30 years ago, or even most modern road cars). Plus the rescue services aren't going to let on if someone really i injured until they have enough information for a proper press release and so onlookers might be fearing the worse. especially in cases where wheels or other bits of car have ended up in the crowds watching the race.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[wince] Yes, onlookers have been killed at some races here.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I recently read a good article about misuse of the language by the media:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7978041/Strictly-English-by-Simon-Heffer-Part-Three.html

Simon Heffer is a right-wing newspaper columnist, but on subjects other than politics I often find myself agreeing with him.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember a reporter telling me years ago how they use language to make everything sound so much worse, using pretty much his examples of rows erupting when it was just a reasoned disagreement in a meeting. [rolls eyes]

[pet-lunatic.livejournal.com]

I must be a bit off, because I've only ever come across 'carnage' as meaning 'immense destruction', though I would usually think it involved the destruction of people as well as buildings, and I certainly wouldn't think it had anything to do with cars.

Not that I advocate the misuse of language at all, but since language does evolve and meanings change, if most people now used 'carnage' to mean 'massive destruction' (with or without death) then I'd say it was a fair use of the term, and would argue that 'carnage' now in fact *did* mean massive destruction, by popular vote, so to speak. Like how it's now cool to be funky and funky to be cool. :) However, it's clearly not the case that the word has evolved in this way, since most of the people in your poll voted for the high death toll option! So I've learned something :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Words do change, often radically, but it's a bit early for this one yet. Given the number of people who still think it means death and injury, it was a really bad one to use in that report.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

My vote was for death though to be accurate it should have been horrible, bloody death with lots of body parts strewn around.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I have always connected this word with blood and corpses...
Of course I hah to rely on English fiction and not-fiction. And - a Czech equivalent is "krveprolití" which means something like "bloodspilling".

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And you are right!