# Just heard on the news: "A matador was fatally killed...." **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630 "2016-07-11T03:42:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/61 "2016-07-13T13:27:09Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Yeah but normally the people who deal in scrap metal (i.e., that scrap yard’s customers and suppliers) aren’t the smartest. I’ve had clients who dealt in metal recovery; those who only took ferrous metals were up to here of people trying to sell them aluminum frames and copper wire, while those who dealt in for example zinc recovery were up to here of people trying to sell them anything else… > > The guy who wrote that sign was just going for a fancy version of “we deal in all kinds of metals. Promise. If it’s metal, we’ll take it. No damnit we don’t take plastic!” Yes. I understood the sign. I was commenting on **Morgyn’s** post that listed nonferrous materials- it seemed like he may have missed the part where the sign said ferrous _and nonferrous_ materials (that the sign was inclusive of all metals). ETA: > [@Morgyn](#): > > Somehow, I skipped RIGHT OVER the nonferrous bit. :smack: Apparently, that’s what happened. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/62 "2016-07-13T14:52:39Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > And they’re wrong. “Electrocution” is a portmanteau for “electric execution.” Not only is death, but deliberate death, required. Nope. That is indeed how the word was created, but etymology does not equal present-day meaning. > **[Etymological fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy)** > > An etymological fallacy is an argument of equivocation, arguing that a word is defined by its etymology, and that its customary usage is therefore incorrect. > Ancient Greeks believed that there was a "true meaning" of a word, distinct from common use. There is evidence that a similar belief existed among ancient Vedic scholars. In modern days, this fallacy can be found in some arguments of language purists. > An etymological fallacy becomes possible when a word's meaning shifts over time from its ... > **[Etymological Fallacy](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/cgi-bin/uy/webpages.cgi?%2Flogicalfallacies%2FEtymological-Fallacy)** > > The assumption that the present day meaning of a word should be/is similar to the historical meaning. This fallacy ignores the evolution of language and heart of linguistics. This fallacy is usually committed when one finds the historical meaning... > [@](#): > > Description: The assumption that the present day meaning of a word should be/is similar to the historical meaning. This fallacy ignores the evolution of language and heart of linguistics. When used today, and in numerous dictionaries, “electrocuted” means “injured or killed”, and “accidentally” or “deliberately”. It need not mean “killed”, and in need not mean “deliberately killed as a form of punishment”. > **[Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data](https://languages.oup.com/)** > > Explore Oxford Languages, the home of world-renowned language data. > [@](#): > > Injure or kill (someone) by electric shock: > ‘a man was electrocuted on the rail track’ Obviously, the word has moved on from its roots, and its meaning has broadened. It is no longer used, as it was historically, to mean “deliberate execution using electricity”. Now, it can mean accidental or deliberate. It has, arguably, broadened yet further over the years, to mean either death or injury, accidental or deliberate. Hence, "“The electrician was accidentally electrocuted when he stuck his hand in a light socket, _and is now recovering in hospital_” is now proper. ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/63 "2016-07-13T19:35:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > He was not only fatally killed. He was fatally killed to death. I’ve heard that that can be life-threatening. ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/64 "2016-07-13T19:49:51Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#): > > I once heard a sports announcer on a football game say the team in question would “just have to out-score” the opponents. > > This made me 😕, and I thought, “Well, that is traditionally how games are won…” > > I don’t follow sports, so I can only speculate that he meant they would have to rely less on their defense or some kind of cunning stratagem and accept greater risk on aggressive offensive plays. It just seemed like a very silly way to phrase it, because that is how all games are decided in the end. In any game scored with points, there are two ways to win: score more points than your opponent, and prevent your opponent from scoring more points than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/65 "2016-07-13T20:23:23Z")
> [@OffByOne](#): > > In any game scored with points, there are two ways to win: score more points than your opponent, Which means you outscored them. > [@OffByOne](#): > > and prevent your opponent from scoring more points than you do. Which means you outscored them. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/66 "2016-07-13T21:03:08Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > One that struck me was from a museum newsletter article about a pre-Columbian Peruvian exhibit. The author wrote something about a display of idols “depicting their imaginary gods …”. In my mind I was thinking “there’s another kind?” . I see this as a (probably unconscious) ethnocentric insult of saying “depicting their IMAGINARY gods [as opposed to our real one]” and I tend to shift my reading of it to “depicting THEIR imaginary gods [rather than spending their idle time more fruitfully by depicting OUR imaginary god(s)].” > [@LouisB](#): > > I’ve always thought it redundant to hear of someone interviewing the survivors of some catastrophe; who the hell else would they interview? An interview with someone who didn’t survive would be much more newsworthy. What irritates me more about those on-the-scene clips is the reporter sticking a microphone in someone’s face after asking, “How did you feel when [it was occurring]?” I mean, really, does the news team expect to get original footage of someone saying, “Well, when the plane was going down I felt as happy as could be – almost as wonderful as I did when my husband proposed to me for the third time! I felt like dancing through the aisles – well, except that the \*Fasten Seatbelts \*sign was blinking so I couldn’t just get away from the idiot next to me that was screaming jibberish at the top of his lungs – well, yes, that would have been my husband, why do you ask?” –G! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/67 "2016-07-13T21:17:36Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > I see this as a (probably unconscious) ethnocentric insult of saying “depicting their IMAGINARY gods [as opposed to our real one]” and I tend to shift my reading of it to “depicting THEIR imaginary gods [rather than spending their idle time more fruitfully by depicting OUR imaginary god(s)].” I suppose they could have meant “depicting their gods whom they themselves knew to be imaginary.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/68 "2016-07-14T07:13:40Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Yes. I understood the sign. I never thought you hadn’t, I only quoted your post because it happened to be the last one on that subthread. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/69 "2016-07-14T13:08:13Z")
Back when Blockbuster had movie synopses on the back of their boxes instead of renting out the cover box along with the movie (and back when Blockbuster was _around,_ for that matter), here was the first sentence of the synopsis of the film _Girl, Interrupted:_ “A young woman is brought into a psychiatric hospital after she commits suicide.” Shouldn’t that be “attempts”? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/70 "2016-07-14T13:16:43Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > Back when Blockbuster had movie synopses on the back of their boxes instead of renting out the cover box along with the movie (and back when Blockbuster was _around,_ for that matter), here was the first sentence of the synopsis of the film _Girl, Interrupted:_ > > “A young woman is brought into a psychiatric hospital after she commits suicide.” > > Shouldn’t that be “attempts”? Or maybe it was a _huge_ spoiler! ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630/71 "2016-07-14T13:18:52Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > I see this as a (probably unconscious) ethnocentric insult of saying “depicting their IMAGINARY gods [as opposed to our real one]” and I tend to shift my reading of it to “depicting THEIR imaginary gods [rather than spending their idle time more fruitfully by depicting OUR imaginary god(s)].” Yeah, I pretty well assumed it was penned by a believer in a particular god (probably the Christian one), for whom other folk’s gods are, by definition, imaginary. It just struck me as a very odd and amusing word choice. On a side note: I have adopted it as my go-to for swearing purposes. If I hit my thumb with a hammer: “Oh, the Imaginary Gods!” rather than “Oh, Jesus!”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-heard-on-the-news-a-matador-was-fatally-killed/759630.md?page=3)