I don’t think it’s a matter of education; it’s a weird quirk of the language that would require us to actually KNOW the individual exceptions in every case, instead of applying a rule (i.e. the prefix “in” means “not”). Most people know the rule, but not everyone knows that inflammable doesn’t mean not-flammable, because it’s an exception.
That usage isn’t exactly new… I’d guess it’s nearly 20 years old if I had to guess.
And now you’ve hit one of my bugbears: people who don’t understand why the “official” usage is totally correct and why Carlin was totally full of shit. It’s not a fancy technical term; it’s just English 101.
It’s the difference between “near” which is an adjective meaning proximity, and “nearly” which is an adverb meaning high probability. Watch this “conjugation” to see how it really works:
It’s called a “near miss” because it was a miss that occurred near each other = in close proximity. One could properly call that a “nearly hit”, but not a “near hit”.
[rant=off]
Yes, a “near miss” is a kind of miss. Which is why the Britishism “car park” bothers me: it should mean a kind of park.
It’s a park for cars.
You and I have both worked for the same employer, albeit at different altitudes. I’d never been a member of an accident investigation, but for this knuckle-dragger, the “English 101” argument doesn’t fly.
You lose me at the jump from #3 to #4. The contraction of “they came near then missed” to “they near-missed” loses some context to inform a casual nerd like myself that they did not, in fact, collide.
“Nearly hit” makes sense, but “avoided collision event” would make it more straightforward.
But then again, I have my own jargon; it’s a “UXO” (unexploded ordnance), because not everything is a “bomb.”
Tripler
I ought to make up some acronyms.
It always sounds to me like a park where you can take the leash off your car, and let it play with other cars.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting you were a goof. Or at least not on purpose; sorry if I succeeded anyhow.
Carlin’s joke has staying power precisely because it’s superficially plausible. Just like the idea upthread that “inflammable” means “does not burn”; that’s superficially plausible too.
If instead of “near miss” they had called it a “close miss” I don’t think folks would be confused. Ideally we’d have “nearly hit” and “close miss”.
And of course, there is an actual official acronym for these things: NMAC = Near Mid-Air Collision.
Though whether that’s actually an acronym or a mere initialism is an interesting bit of pedantry.
Thinking of that movie The Secret Life of Pets, how do you know what your car is up to while you’re asleep or inside the Wally World?
A “car park” makes more sense to me that the upper Midwest term “parking ramp” referring to a multi-story parking facility. What most Americans call a “parking structure”
Is there any actual proof that anyone gets “near miss” mixed up, or is it just another comedic variation on “Why do you drive on a parkway, and park on a driveway?” style wordplay?
I mean, if someone’s throwing baseballs at your head and misses by 3 feet, that’s a normal “miss”. If they miss your head by a half-inch, then it’s a “near miss” in the sense of it’s a miss, but one that was near.
I agree that Carlin’s “near hit” doesn’t even make sense. If they hit you with the baseball, it goes from being a miss of some sort (far OR near) to being a hit. Now it could be a glancing hit, a square hit, etc… but “near” doesn’t have any sensible use in the context of a hit.
I’ve never heard either of those terms. The familiar terms to me are “parking lot” for an outdoor space where you can park your car, or “parking garage” for a multi-story building.
My own view is it’s just wordplay as you say. But there are people who maintain “near miss” really is backwards. But those same folks don’t seem to argue that parkways and driveways should be renamed.
Carlin’s thing is just comedic wordplay, but, like many of his comments about language, it does have an element of truth. I would argue that the “near” in “near miss” derives from “nearly” rather than physical proximity. The event it denotes is “nearly a collision”. “Near collision” would be more accurate, but it conveys the sense that a certain kind of collision actually occurred, with “near” being just a modifier. I suspect that “near miss” is the result of our innate sense of language kicking in to invent something perhaps slightly illogical yet clearly comprehensible and succinct.
No worries, brother, we’re cool. I was just pulling the thread after you’d pulled that thread, but I took your frustration for Carlin in stride. I am glad to hear that there is an acronym that better describes it. The government simply cannot function without acronyms.
Tripler
Or PowerPoint. Acronyms and PowerPoint.
Like Wolfpup, I’ve not heard either of those expressions. I would use “parking lot” for a ground level lot, and a “parkade” for a multi-level one (contraction of “parking arcade”).
And high-tech organizations. Put government and high-tech together, and you get acronyms coming at you like driven snow in a blizzard on Christmas Eve! 
This covers 2 bases. Your point, and that my pet peeve is people who use the pharse “pet peeve”. BTW the caller’s response to Frasier is not meant for you
I’m currently reading, with great interest, the fine work of literary guidance that I mentioned above, English As She Is Spoke. The section “Familiar Phrases” provides vast numbers of candidates for a posting sig. The one that first caught my attention was “We are in the canicule”. I could almost consider that my life motto. But (so far) there is also “I am catched cold in the brain” and “Dress my horse”.
You know, just as I was thinking about what other words make me cringe, I received an email from our IT partners entitled, “CRITICAL ASK,” and I almost screamed.
Well, if you don’t give them their critical ask, their project won’t meet its critical success factors, and will therefore fail to synergistically leverage the core competency ask in their Mission Statement.
Maybe alreaedy mentioned?
The incorrect use of “aggravate” in the OP title. Yeah, yeah I get it that there’s some second “informal” definition, basically meaning “annoy”, but fuck that noise - it ain’t that.
Especially point number two, which is why I’ve always been more an Oxford than MW man.