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Post by Verbivore on Mar 14, 2020 0:15:09 GMT
I was interested to find the origin of "epicentre", so I visited the Online Etymology Dictionary. It's not a particularly old word, having been coined in 1885 as a seismological term meaning a "point on the Earth's surface directly above the surface or focus of an earthquake". Definitely no connection with infectious disease but even the head of the WHO used it as such today. Why couldn't he just say, "centre"? Two dictionaries I've consulted define the prefix "epi" as, "above, over, upon, on" and, "upon, above". Above, over, upon, or on the centre seems a pretty good definition of the point above an earthquake, but to my mind it doesn't describe a concentration of people suffering from a virus. Twod: You and I could be the last people holding back the tide of misusage of the term. In all of my 70+ dictionaries epi and epicentre are defined as you have described. However, the OED does have a note of the supposed first recorded usage in the "modern" sense: 1970 Times 10 Apr. 3/1 It has been a good year for the Maltings. Those at Snape, epicentre of the Aldeburgh Festival, have been lovingly rebuilt after last year's fire.
I know nothing of Snape. Is/was it above the Aldeburgh Festival? Perhaps we have The Times to blame for the perverted usage. Yes, I know language changes, and some changes I can live with, but epicentre used as has become epidemic * recently is one I continue to resist. * a sudden, widespread occurrence of an undesirable phenomenon – American Oxford Dictionary
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 14, 2020 9:00:05 GMT
But EPIdemiologists, studying EPIidemics, already use the prefix in the sense of “upon” - a visitation, arrival, scourge or whatever UPON the people - so they, and now perhaps we, should be comfortable with the idea of it applying to somewhere that the disease centres upon.
They can’t use “centre”, because that’s historically Wuhan, or mathematically some irrelevant, and moving, point on or within the globe of the earth.
Note that here I’m supporting the use for a major new cluster in an outbreak - NOT for general use when someone really means “centre”.
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 14, 2020 21:05:50 GMT
But EPIdemiologists, studying EPIidemics, already use the prefix in the sense of “upon” - a visitation, arrival, scourge or whatever UPON the people - so they, and now perhaps we, should be comfortable with the idea of it applying to somewhere that the disease centres upon. Dave, if a word ("Epicentre") that was invented with a specific meaning can be used to describe something else that might also fit the bill, "Epidemic" could be adapted in much the same way. "Epidemic" seems to have been derived from "Upon the people", so perhaps we could start using it as a substitute for "Taxation". The problem with using words as metaphors for other words that already have precise meanings is that they soon become synonyms for those words, and often eventually replace them in common use. "Enormity" and "Impact" are the first two that spring to my mind, and it's all encouraged by journalists and news presenters who mistakenly think they're experts in the language.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 14, 2020 21:38:16 GMT
But you’re confusing specific meaning with specific context of use, Twod. The original CONTEXT OF USE of “epicentre” was within earth science, but even then it had the MEANING of “centre above/upon”. When a word begins to be used in a different context, but still has the same meaning, I see no problem. We haven’t even got yet to the use of metaphor.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 15, 2020 21:57:50 GMT
Groan! (The headline, not the content)
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 15, 2020 23:05:15 GMT
Groan! (The headline, not the content) Now that one's definitely a centre!
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 15, 2020 23:22:52 GMT
Groan! (The headline, not the content) Now that one's definitely a centre! Is the use of "Epicentre" there a metaphor?
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 16, 2020 20:43:15 GMT
Read on the news (one of the aunties ABC / BBC) um'ing and ah'ing. I'd have written umming and ahhing.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 16, 2020 21:35:33 GMT
Read on the news (one of the aunties ABC / BBC) um'ing and ah'ing. I'd have written umming and ahhing. Yes, me too. Either “um”ing and “ah”ing, if you want to emphasise that the sounds aren’t really words, or (much better) umming and ahhing.
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 16, 2020 23:39:11 GMT
Um'ing and ah'ing look as though they should be pronounced respectively, "yewming" and "aa-hing".
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 17, 2020 9:23:16 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 18, 2020 9:13:31 GMT
I hope you’re all staying well in these silly times. Here's my muso son Ash doing his thing on the supermarket panic. CoVID-19
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 18, 2020 12:22:21 GMT
I hope you’re all staying well in these silly times. Here's my muso son Ash doing his thing on the supermarket panic. CoVID-19Loved it! He's a talented bloke, Vv!
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 18, 2020 19:05:05 GMT
I hope you’re all staying well in these silly times. Here's my muso son Ash doing his thing on the supermarket panic. CoVID-19Loved it! He's a talented bloke, Vv! He is, Twod. For his second xmas we gave him a tiny Casio keyboard (I think its range was about an octave and a half). He took to it instantly, and almost immediately he was playing jingles from the TV – by ear. Turns out he has perfect pitch – a talent neither I (who trained in classical / operatic singing) nor his maternal grandmother (a prize-winning operatic coloratura soprano) were gifted. He's been a professional musician since before leaving school – and still doesn't read a jot of musical notation. He plays numerous instruments (everything you heard and more), composes, and teaches guitar. Now, at age 45, he's decided on a change and is training as a commercial pilot. Ash first posted the song on Fakebook; it was there for only nine hours before it was taken down by Those In Control but in that time it gained 33,000 likes. PS: The video has now been made private on YouTube, too, after someone took offence.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 19, 2020 3:16:20 GMT
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