Classical Values :: Killing the resemblance of definitions

Killing the resemblance of definitions

Does language have meaning anymore?

No, seriously. It's bad enough when words like "fascist" and "liberal" lose all meaning. But I am increasingly at a loss to understand the ordinary usage of the most basic, most simple words and concepts.

It's not that I think of myself as particularly ignorant (I hold a B.A. in Rhetoric as well as a J.D.), but here I sit, struggling over the meaning of the word "kill."

What does it mean?

Here's one definition:

a. To put to death.
b. To deprive of life: The Black Death was a disease that killed millions.

The reason for my puzzlement today is a statistic in the Philadelphia Inquirer that I'm unable to reconcile with facts already known to me:

Nasir was the 10th child under the age of 17 to be killed in the city this year.

Sometime around 8 p.m. Thursday, four men broke into the back of the house in the 5800 block of Malvern Avenue where Nasir lived with his mother, Hollie Butts. The men opened fire with assault weapons, hitting Nasir three times.

A 19-year-old man, identified by police as Alonzo Washington, was found wounded on the ground outside the home in critical condition. His address was not available.

Butts and at least one man escaped.

(Emphasis added.)

I don't have the police statistics, but in my attempts to analyze the Inquirer's statistics in the past few months, the following fourteen child killings have stared me in the face:

Nasir Hinton (see above -- the latest shooting victim)

Wander DeJesus (shot to death in March)

Mimi and Kenny Dang (both stabbed in March)

ten child victims killed by fire so far this year

Bear in mind that the above are just the ones which have drawn my attention from reading the paper. I would have to expect that there would be others. But if I get fourteen off the top of my head, then what accounts for such a discrepancy?

Why has the Inquirer stated repeatedly that there were only ten despite clear evidence to the contrary?

A possible explanation might be that the Inquirer is using a new definition of the word "kill." Perhaps the five most recent child fire victims are not seen by the Inquirer as having been killed at all.

Perhaps?

No; that's wrong, because in the same (today's) issue of the Inquirer, both the headline and the text describe the most five children as having been "killed":

About 300 people attended the service for the sisters, among five children killed in a Kensington fire.

By Vernon Clark

Inquirer Staff Writer

A single white casket topped with family photos and surrounded by flowers and balloons sat at the front of a church in Philadelphia's Kensington section yesterday as about 300 people paid tribute to three young sisters killed in a rowhouse fire.

This leaves me at a loss, although I notice the pieces were not written by the same author. Might each writer have his own different working definition of "kill"?

It's fair to point out that elsewhere in the Inquirer, victims of auto accidents are described as having been "killed":

An SUV that struck and critically injured an Ocean County woman was driven by State Sen. Robert W. Singer, authorities said. The accident Wednesday occurred less than a mile from where Singer was involved in a crash that killed another driver four years ago.

Like many newspapers, the Inquirer has used "killed" to describe accident victims repeatedly:

A 20-year-old Marlton man received a $200 fine yesterday when he pleaded guilty in Westampton municipal court to careless driving in a crash that killed an East Brunswick man.

So, without getting into a detailed word count "overkill," I think it's fair to conclude that by the Inquirer's own definitions, accidents kill people, just as deliberate actions kill people.

That puzzles me even more, because I find it hard to believe that no children have been killed by such things as automobile accidents, poisonings, or drownings. (How would an accidental shooting be counted?)

Why is the number only ten?

As noted above, fire alone killed ten this year!

I'm now wondering about whether cigarettes kill. Does AIDS kill? Do tsunamis kill? Collapsing buildings?

I'm not trying to split hairs or be argumentative here. In fact, I'd venture that the best way to avoid having pointless arguments is to be able to agree upon basic definitions for basic words. And "kill" is a pretty basic word.

If something so basic as how many people have been killed depends upon definitions which cannot be discovered (much less agreed upon), then what's the point of communication?

I guess I should be glad that words don't kill.

UPDATE (06/23/05): Stephan Salisbury has still not replied to an email I sent him asking about the statistics, and what is meant by the word "kill." However, in an article today, he writes that an auto accidents killed a child under 17:

Police yesterday obtained a warrant to search a white Lexus coupe that investigators believe may have been involved in a hit-and-run accident that killed a 15-year-old girl in the East Falls section of Philadelphia late Sunday.

Still no word on why only ten children were described as "killed" this year.

Was it a mistake?

An inside secret?

Some mysteries may never be explained....

"Words don't kill" -- unless it's yelling "fire!" in a crowded firing squad, or discussing the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem" at the Wannsee Conference in 1942....

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · June 19, 2005 12:44 PM

Here's some more words that kill, some words that seem very popular among many today:

"Pull the plug...."

"You have a duty to die and get out of the way to make room for the next generation."
-former Governor Richard Lamm of Colorado

"Those kooky religious fanatics are interfering with my right to terminate my pregnancy!"

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · June 19, 2005 02:53 PM