(This post follows on from the two preceding posts.)
In the comment thread to my preceding post my commenters pointed up the fact that I had failed to make absolutely clear exactly what the unfortunate Mr. Fish, the weatherman, actually said on his famous night of the 'hurricane' that never was. In doing that, of course, they illustrated exactly the next point I wished to raise, that is, the difficulties of using language correctly. The word 'hurricane', for example, means one thing to a weatherman, that is, a wind of a particular measurable force which places it in one category, 'hurricane', rather than another, say, 'gale'. But to the likes of me and you, those 'gales' which battered Britain in 1987 were indistinguishable from 'hurricanes', being winds of such force that none of us had ever experienced the like before. And several people died as a result.
Returning to Italy, after the conference of seismologists which, due to the near panic developing was moved from Rome to L' Aquila, two of the scientists and two 'civilians' (so to speak) came out to talk to the press. It was at this point that the inherent problems of probability and possibility were doubled by the problems of language. "Words, words, words", the gloomy Dane complained but in this context of approaching catastrophe words really did matter. The mixture of scientists and 'civilians', each putting a greater or lesser emphas here or there merely added to the confusion. But are there any 'correct' words in such circumstances? I am reminded of the terrorist security gradings issued by HMG which are issued with colour grades to assist understanding. One can imagine the man-hours invested by civil servants in parsing as exactly as they can the precise distinctions between each grade of risk. But do they actually help? At which point on the scale do you decide not to use the tube or an airport? Probably the day after an atrocity which speaks volumes!
What was that? Did someone ask what the solution was? Haven't a clue, old boy, I always rely on gut instinct!
ADDITIONAL: By coincidence, a good friend of mine, Mark Bannister, who combines computer 'geekery' of the highest order with a brilliantly creative musical talent - he composes music for all my theatre productions - has just written a post on the subject of the old NASA 'clunker' about to fall to earth in a shower of bits and pieces, and the liklehood, or not, of being hit. An odd coincidence of minds pondering the same subject. Worth a read.
"...servants in parsing as exactly as they can ...": I'm sad to see that you've adopted this common American misuse of the verb "to parse".
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 19:23
Oh God, not the tawse - again!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 19:50
Actually, Headmaster, before I hold out my hand, I have just checked on 'parse' in my OED:
"resolve (a sentence) into its component parts and describe their syntactic roles."
'Syntax' is defined as:
"the arrangement of words and phrases to create well formed sentences in a language."
Yes, sir, please, sir, that's exactly what I meant by 'parse' in the context of my essay and I'm sticking to it even if it earns me two extra lashes!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 20:48
Ah ha!
Comes the lurking masochist I somehow suspected dwelt within the heart of the mild-mannered Duffster.
DM - stop lashing him.
He enjoys it far too much.
Wait 'til I tell the memsahib!!
Posted by: Andra | Friday, 23 September 2011 at 00:29
Sorry, Andra, my pain threshhold lies at the minus end of the scale!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 23 September 2011 at 09:08