"hard landing"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The important point is tweaking the OED def. of "hard landing."

  Not to get too OT, but I agree that "hard landings," however defined, used not to be reported in, e.g., Vietnam.  A contributing factor may be that many more helicopters were struck by enemy fire then than now. It may be (I stress "may") that "hard landings," regardless of cause or degree of damage, are seen as more newsworthy because fewer aircraft are being shot down and there's more news time to fill.

  On the other hand, as Murphy's Language Law states, "Wherever a situation exists that can be euphemized, a euphemism will be found to apply to it."

  JL
Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: "hard landing"
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I doubt if any pre- or post-corrections are warrented, Jonathan! (Let me note here that the public schools of Georgia have both "pre-planning" and "post-planning" sessions for the faculty--to prepare for the future and also prepare for the past!?)

I think what impressed me about the military use of the phrase "hard landing" is that, as far as I am aware, no "hard landings" were widely reported from previous wars/conflicts. And nowadays all the reported "hard landings," it seems, eventually turn out to have been shoot-downs. That's why the current use struck me as euphemistic--a way to imply the absence of an effective hostile agency. (Yes, shot-down helicopters, especially if they have been hit by small-arms fire, are probably better than airplanes at "crash landing" without being completely destroyed.)

--Charlie
___________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 08:18:28 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter
>Subject: Re: "hard landing"
>
>The OED def. would seem to make "hard landing" synonymous with the more familiar yet less soothing "crash landing." My naive interpretation has always been that a "crash landing" may occur from any emergency cause and, while necessarily damaging the aircraft does not necessarily "destroy" it. A "hard landing," however, must result in only limited damage.
>
> So whether euphemism is at work today is not clear to me. One can make a "hard landing" - as described- for any reason. A helicopter may be hit by enemy fire without being "shot down" or destroyed, and may make an emergency "hard" landing that is only partially "uncontrolled."
>
> While "deniability" obviously can't be ruled out as a factor in diction, use of "hard landing" may also result from temporary uncertainty about what caused the landing, combined with the imperative to report.
>
> If, however, a destroyed helicopter was described as merely making a "hard landing," I stand pre-corrected.
>
> JL
>
>Charles Doyle wrote:
>
>In an aeronautical (and more-or-less literal) sense, the OED defines "hard landing" as "an uncontrolled landing in which the vehicle is destroyed," with citations from 1958 and 1967. Google Books seems to give numerous instances of aviation uses from as early as the second decade of the 20th century, perhaps without the requirement that the vehicle be totally destroyed. (The OED appears to overlook the metaphorical application of the term to economic or monetary matters, prevalent since the 1980s or so.)
>
>Now "hard landing" has become something of a military euphemism (dutifully adopted by the media) to refer to the way a helicopter comes to the ground after it has probably--but, for the moment, deniably--been shot down by enemy fire.
>
>--Charlie

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