Postmodernist "interrogate"

[Chris Waigl]

On 9 Sep 2011, at 10:05, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> The [nuclear plant] engineers [after the Mineral earthquake] call the
> process"interrogating" the cracks: engineers carry little loops of
> wire in thicknesses from one thirty-second of an inch to one-third of
> an inch to measure the cracks' width and depth.
>
> "After Quake, Virginia Nuclear Plant Takes Stock", NYTimes, 2011
> Sept. 8, A21/4 [New England edition]
>

I thought that the verb interrogate to describe investigation in the physical sciences was fairly commonplace jargon, neither new nor postmodernist.

For example, here's seismologist whose home page starts out: "Thorne Lay's primary research interests involve analysis of seismic waves to interrogate the deep structure of the Earth's interior and to study the physics of earthquake faulting." (http://www.pmc.ucsc.edu/~seisweb/thorne_lay/) I find nothing much remarkable about this.

(Also, I'm wondering about your usage of "postmodernist".)

Chris Waigl

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Chris Waigl -- http://chryss.eu -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
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