pass out

[Victoria Neufeldt]

Isn't 'passed out' a common synonym for 'drunk'?  There is a sad
tradition of people, including law officers, assuming that someone
lying in the gutter has passed out from drink, and therefore not
bothering to offer help.  This might have been a similar situation;
i.e. they assumed he was drunk.  'Passed out' conjurs up the image of
someone who is drunk, while the word 'unconscious' is more often used
for medical situations.

Victoria Neufeldt
727 9th Street East
Saskatoon, Sask.
S7H 0M6
Canada
Tel: 306-955-8910

On Friday, August 02, 2002 10:59 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 12:53:19PM -0400, Mark A Mandel wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Donald M Lance wrote:
> >
> > #> ....... Maybe the crew member talking to the
> dispatcher is inferring
> > #> "passed out, unconscious" from a less explicit message from the
> > #> conductor, but s/he is reporting it as a fact.
> > #
> > #My guess is that the decision-maker assumed 'passed out'
> = 'fainted', not
> > #something like a heart attack.
> >
> > Yes, but that doesn't explain the original sentence that
> bothered me:
> >
> >   It is unclear whether the crew realized that Allen was
> >   unconscious when they reported that he had "passed out."
>
> I do find this a little odd too, but perhaps this means "It
> is unclear
> whether the crew realized that Allen was _still_
> unconscious..." i.e,
> the crew may have thought that he had briefly passed out
> but was then
> revived, when in fact he passed out and remained unconscious.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>