Legal Writing

Words that mean something bad has happened

By Pam_Nelson

Those who report the news often apply labels to terrible or urgent events: tragedy, disaster, crisis, emergency.  Sometimes, those labels don't quite fit. We risk overstating the trouble.

Whenever I read or hear the word tragedy, I remember Theodore M. Bernstein's entry in "The Careful Writer." He points out that tragedy in the classic sense means "the downfall of a highly superior person caused at least in part by some fault inherent within him." Bernstein doesn't restrict the word to that use, but he writes, "... it is well to use it only if something great or heroic is involved in the misfortune." The sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy; the ship's builders and crew were trying to do something grand, but their actions led to great misfortune.

A crisis doesn't apply to every dire situation. A crisis is a turning point, a moment that calls for action. In literature, a crisis is "when a conflict reaches its highest tension and must be resolved," according to the American Heritage Dictionary. In medicine, a crisis is "the point in a serious disease at which a decisive change occurs," Random House Webster's College Dictionary says. Our current economic problem is a crisis in that it marks a fundamental shift, a time when decisions that we and our government make will change the course of history.

Disaster applies when an event causes great loss of life, damage or hardship. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, but reporters probably need to think twice before they use that word for any storm that passes through. Of course, for people whose loved ones have died or whose homes are lost, it could be a disaster or it could be an emergency, a situation that calls for help.

I think most reporters are cautious about three big "C" words -- calamity, cataclysm and catastrophe. Cataclysm, in particular, should probably not come up unless Earth is in jeopardy -- a pending asteroid collision, perhaps. The word comes from the Greek for "flood," making me think of Noah. And catastrophe connotes a very bad ending. It's hard to come back from a catastrophe. Calamity carries the idea of extraordinary misfortune that humans could do little to prevent but one from which we could recover.

As I looked for synonyms for disaster, I ran across fiasco and debacle, labels that we apply to complete failures, usually caused by someone's mistake. Custer's Last Stand was a debacle and a fiasco. It might also have been a tragedy, if you think of Gen. George Custer as a superior human brought down by pride and arrogance.

If we are looking for words to describe our perilous times, we can find plenty. What we hope is that the crisis has occurred that will help us prevent a catastrophe.

Full post as published by Triangle Grammar Guide on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).