Saturday, January 26, 2008

David's Definitions for March '08

Implode

(Will appear in the March 2008 issue of Community News)

An object implodes when it collapses inwards. For example, to prevent damage to surrounding structures, buildings are sometimes demolished by timed explosions that destroy their internal supports, resulting in those spectacular implosions we all love to watch on television. Physics teachers sometimes demonstrate the force of air pressure by drawing the air out of a container (evacuating it) so that the container collapses in upon itself - it implodes. This is obviously the opposite of explode, in which something breaks apart and the parts fly outwards. Unfortunately, implode is now often used for any kind of collapse. People say that the Soviet Union imploded, when in fact it fragmented - broke apart into a number of separate countries, a common process when an empire dies. In this election season, when a politician withdraws from the presidential race, you'll hear that his campaign imploded, but of course it really just fizzled out, a very different kind of catastrophe.



I'm collecting all of these at: http://www.dvorkin.com/davidsdefs.html

5 comments:

Chris said...

This one's a peeve of mine -- glad you covered it!

David said...

Another one that annoys me in the same way is "epicenter". People seem to think it's a more intense kind of center, and it's become a synonym for "center".

Chris said...

Wow -- that one's never occurred to me, although now I'm becoming retroactively annoyed for all the times I've heard it used. It reminds me of the old Strunk and White argument to unofficially strike 'utilize' from the English language. Why the extra syllables, when 'use' will do just fine? Of course, then we would not be able to utilize the utile word 'utile'...

Lahdeedah said...

Spare me irregardless.

Seriously. Irregardless?

aaahhhhh

I can't stand words that don't have any place describing a process involving paperwork describing a process involving paperwork.

"Leverage as much of that information as you can."

Leverage....

David said...

It always interests me how many linquistic pet peeves people have. There's so much to be peeved at!