quote:As human beings they are indeed irreplaceable, but only their immediate circle - family and friends - knew them as such. Consequently it is a tragedy for the families, but as for Poland, eh, it is not yet seriously discommoded.
People can be important and irreplacable to you even if you've never met them face to face.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Consequently it is a tragedy for the families, but as for Poland, eh, it is not yet seriously discommoded.
If you want a hint to sort of nudge you into the right direction, this event will be near-unanimously known, referred to, and remembered as a tragedy.
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posted
Its good to know that Knut Haugland's death didn't have an emotional effect on anyone he hadn't met personally. Heck, he wasn't even doing anything that would make it have political impact.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Consequently it is a tragedy for the families, but as for Poland, eh, it is not yet seriously discommoded.
If you want a hint to sort of nudge you into the right direction, this event will be near-unanimously known, referred to, and remembered as a tragedy.
That remains to be seen. In any case it's not a point where I would substitute the judgement of the media for my own.
quote:It's good to know that Knut Haugland's death didn't have an emotional effect on anyone he hadn't met personally. Heck, he wasn't even doing anything that would make it have political impact.
I don't believe I treated it as anything other than a news story which would remind people of the events of WWII. I would certainly never dream of claiming that his death was a tragedy for Norwegians. Emotional effect != tragedy. Heck, I've been known to get emotionally affected by reading about completely fictional characters for the third time.
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posted
Perhaps you're not aware of the definition of tragedy, then? It is defined in terms of emotional reaction. If it causes great sadness, it is a tragedy.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Consequently it is a tragedy for the families, but as for Poland, eh, it is not yet seriously discommoded.
If you want a hint to sort of nudge you into the right direction, this event will be near-unanimously known, referred to, and remembered as a tragedy.
That remains to be seen. In any case it's not a point where I would substitute the judgement of the media for my own.
No but you could use it to eventually figure out that this event is exactly what is commonly referred to as a 'tragedy' because it is a tragedy.
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quote:Emotional effect != tragedy. Heck, I've been known to get emotionally affected by reading about completely fictional characters for the third time.
Since it wasn't a tragedy, it must have been a comedy, neh? Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Perhaps you're not aware of the definition of tragedy, then? It is defined in terms of emotional reaction. If it causes great sadness, it is a tragedy.
It is possible that you would find this definition in a dictionary; I don't think, however, that this is the common usage. Rather, people call something a tragedy if it has large, negative effects other than emotion. Thus, the German invasion was a tragedy for Poland: People were getting killed all over the place. The various partitions were tragedies: People lost long-standing rights. Katyn was a tragedy: The military had to be rebuilt from scratch after the war, leading to a much reduced ability to stand up to Russian demands. (Plus I'll admit to some scaling effects in murders; contrary to Stalin, a million deaths is more of a tragedy than a single one, even for a nation as a whole.) But the loss of a few officers and pols in this peacetime? A mere sadness.
By your standard, depending on the student, getting a 'B' on an essay could be a tragedy!
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quote:Emotional effect != tragedy. Heck, I've been known to get emotionally affected by reading about completely fictional characters for the third time.
Since it wasn't a tragedy, it must have been a comedy, neh?
By KOM's definition, most tragedies aren't even tragic!
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posted
You seem to be confusing tragedy with disaster; I agree that there's a certain amount of mixture of the definitions in common usage, though.
However, if you want to talk about usage as the defining characteristic, you're just digging even deeper. Tragedy has a long history of being used for the deaths of national leaders.
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posted
On reflection, it seems possible we are arguing semantics. Suppose I say that this is not a disaster for the Polish people, can we agree on that?
Edit: Wup, cross-posted with the above.
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posted
On reflection, it seems possible you were only interested in miring the thread in a semantic discussion for your personal amusement.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I should point out that Stalin never actually said that popular phrase and was something his biographer made up, (albeit something the biographer believed it was something it would be in character for him to say).
But anyways, is 1,000,000 deaths is a statistic and a single death is a tragedy then that must mean that at some point as deaths approach a arbitrarily large enough it will become divergent and become a statistic but for as long as it approaches 0 it will be convergent and remain a tragedy.
Ergo 90 something deaths by virtue of being a small number is still a tragedy!!!
posted
I don't think you understand what 'divergent' means; and as already established, I'm the only one in the thread who understands what 'tragedy' means. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Ah yes, the definition that lines up with neither the dictionary nor common usage must clearly be the correct understanding . . .
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I don't think you understand what 'divergent' means; and as already established, I'm the only one in the thread who understands what 'tragedy' means.
Divergent is when you have an infinite series that goes to a large number while convergent goes to 0 or a single number.(I think)
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I don't think you understand what 'divergent' means; and as already established, I'm the only one in the thread who understands what 'tragedy' means.
Or 'disaster,' apparently*
*actual english definitions do not apply to KoMspeak
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I don't think this is a semantic issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point you are making that Polish individuals who are unrelated to and never met the people killed by this crash do not need to be as upset as they are?
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
No, King of Men is saying that the deaths of the senior military officers is not a disaster to the polish people, arguably this is true since while it is harmful in the short run Poland is not conducting any wars for its existence right now so in a few years it should have fully recovered and in the short term can be covered by promoting the deputies.
In short it is a tragedy/disaster in the definition of something really really bad happening KoM however disagrees on whether it is a disaster to Poland to the same extant as say the Polish Partitions.
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posted
Whether a disaster is a disaster to the extent of other disasters is a much different question than "is this event a disaster" or "is this event a disaster for Poland"
1. will the event be recalled as a disaster by the polish people: yes 2. will the event essentially be classified historically as a disastrous national event by poland: yes
oboy, time for some off-kilter irrelevant prescriptivism
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I don't think this is a semantic issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point you are making that Polish individuals who are unrelated to and never met the people killed by this crash do not need to be as upset as they are?
Indeed, it's also true that the Poles are overreacting a bit; but this happens with practically any public event in every nation. The US overreacted to 9/11, and also overreacted to the Tiger Woods thing. Norway went way too bananas over curling back in February. France is, frankly, making a mountain of hijabs where there ought to be a molehill of dress codes. And so on. It's an unfortunate side effect of having primate instincts wired to groups of about 150 combined with media networks bringing you issues of the day from 5 billion people. If Poland was a hunter-gatherer tribe, then having the top five warriors killed in one accident would indeed be a disaster, except to the ambitious young men of course.
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