Herido grave al electrocutarse

Question

As an example of how incorrectly some people use the language we get this example today in a national newspaper:

Herido grave al electrocutarse

*electrocutar.

1. tr. Matar por medio de una corriente o descarga eléctrica. U. t. c. prnl.
   

Now this is a really difficult situation: how can this person be both dead and injured''?

Un hombre de 35 años y de nacionalidad rumana resultó herido grave al electrocutarse en un transformador de una nave industrial.

Answer 1

You are perfectly correct in that they are incorrectly using the verb electrocutarse as if it is the same as receiving an electric shock, which you already know, it isn´t. I suppose it looks and sounds more dramatic than "badly injured as a result of receiving an electric shock"

Answer 2

Electrocutar means to use "electridad" in order to "ejecutar" someone. It would have been easier to say "Herido grave por un calambre eléctrico" or "una descarga eléctrica", but there you go...

But I have also seen news saying things like "Tuvieron que ingresarlos en el hospital por heridas y quemaduras, pero estaban sanos y salvos".

Answer 3

Remember it's the dictionary that is documenting language usage, not the other way round! If the dictionary claims that "electrocutar" must imply "mater", but in fact people don't always use it with this implication, then the dictionary is just inaccurate or out of date. (Dictionary editors are just poor human beings trying their best to document usage-- they don't have a direct line with God to ask what the "right" definition is!)

Answer 4

Neil, if someone told me that someone in my family has been "electrocutado", my hart will jump out of my chest before I consider whether they are joking, misusing the word, or any other linguistic consideration. I've always seen people in the newspapers, movies, comics and novels dying after being "electrocutados". Maybe I am out of date too, but to me, "electrocutado" means "DEAD and FRIED", and I've been speaking Spanish for 36 years now. Ah, and I have never checked this word in any dictionary, until today.

Answer 5

Neil Coffey said:

Remember it's the dictionary that is documenting language usage, not the other way round! If the dictionary claims that "electrocutar" must imply "mater", but in fact people don't always use it with this implication, then the dictionary is just inaccurate or out of date. (Dictionary editors are just poor human beings trying their best to document usage-- they don't have a direct line with God to ask what the "right" definition is!)

Ah! The perennial descriptive/prescriptive argument. Unfortunately, dictionaries do not say something like "40% of English speakers use this to mean cause death by electric current" while 60% use it to mean "subject to a severe electric shock". They inevitably waffle (if they make any distinction, at all) by saying something like "also used to mean ..."

Even if they were to make some sort of statistical breakdown, as regarding usage, most would ask themselves, "who are the 60% and who the 40%'". Do you really wish to take as your criterion of usage the London/New York taxi driver (supposing for the moment, that they constitute the majority)? To suggest that usage should be determined by popular usage is tantamount to saying that we should all strive to emulate the lowest common denominator,

Obviously there are those who, despite overwhelming popular usage, would cling to the past (and that is probabley futile and, perhaps, to be discouraged). Nonetheless, to take an obvious example,
There would be no "New World" if Columbus had heeded the warnings of the "flat-earthers" (who voiced the majority opinion)

Answer 6

My teacher at the college told us to be aware of this. You will see and hear words used out of context like that on TV but more so in the written word. That is called "Journalism" like (plagiarism)-plagio. It is used for emphasis and to attract attention.
P.

Answer 7

samdie said:

Neil Coffey said:

Remember it's the dictionary that is documenting language usage, not the other way round! If the dictionary claims that "electrocutar" must imply "mater", but in fact people don't always use it with this implication, then the dictionary is just inaccurate or out of date. (Dictionary editors are just poor human beings trying their best to document usage-- they don't have a direct line with God to ask what the "right" definition is!)

Ah! The perennial descriptive/prescriptive argument. Unfortunately, dictionaries do not say something like "40% of English speakers use this to mean cause death by electric current" while 60% use it to mean "subject to a severe electric shock". They inevitably waffle (if they make any distinction, at all) by saying something like "also used to mean ..."

Even if they were to make some sort of statistical breakdown, as regarding usage, most would ask themselves, "who are the 60% and who the 40%'". Do you really wish to take as your criterion of usage the London/New York taxi driver (supposing for the moment, that they constitute the majority)? To suggest that usage should be determined by popular usage is tantamount to saying that we should all strive to emulate the lowest common denominator,

Obviously there are those who, despite overwhelming popular usage, would cling to the past (and that is probabley futile and, perhaps, to be discouraged). Nonetheless, to take an obvious example,

There would be no "New World" if Columbus had heeded the warnings of the "flat-earthers" (who voiced the majority opinion)

It's absolutely true that dictionaries have severe limitations in their ability to document language usage, and if they were able to include more detail, such as percentage usage with different meanings, percentage of informants that agreed that a word had a certain connotation or belonged to a particular register etc, then I think this would be hugely valuable. But in most cases, the reason they don't include such information is essentially practical (the data is too difficult to gather) rather than ideological.

But even if they did include such information, that doesn't suddenly mean you "should" take notice of it at all if you don't want to. Part of being an effective speaker and writer is continually judging what language to use based on how you believe your audience will react to and interpret it, in turn based on the whole of your "linguistic experience". A dictionary definition is essentially a compiler saying to you "I've found this usage in the corpus I was using to compile the dictionary", and a newspaper headline is saying to you "Here is a sentence that sounds "good" to me, that I believe fulfils the criteria of communicating the relevant information, having the right impact, and which I was able to come up with in the time frame dictated by my boss". In either case, it's up to you whether or not you take that usage into account when deciding what language to use in the future.

Answer 8

Neil Coffey said:

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Answer 9

I have another one, from the news today. It's a story about a slave's granddaughter, but the headline said the slave's ancestor. (Of course, descendant would be the right word.)

At least this time the news feed must have realized the problem, because when I went back to link to the story, it appeared the headline had been fixed.

Answer 10

Well, I've read and heard "el cuerpo sin vida del difunto" and "el occiso hoy sin vida"

I guess in your case, they could've said: Herido grave tras recibir una descarga eléctrica...

Anyway, poor guy!