"casualty"

[Paul Frank]

In the DOD casualty reports available here, casualties appear to be
synonymous with fatalities:

http://search.dma.mil/search?&filter=0&q=casualties&site=DEFENSE_gov&entqr=0&sort=date:D:L:d1&output=xml_no_dtd&client=DEFENSE_frontend&ud=1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=DEFENSE_frontend

But casualties still means "deaths and injuries" to many. See for instance:

"The human cost of the armed conflict in Afghanistan is escalating in
2010. In the first six months of the year civilian casualties –
including deaths and injuries of civilians increased by 31 per cent
over the same period in 2009."
<http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SKEA-887GWN?OpenDocument&Click=>

In the ICRC (where my wife works) casualty means "death and/or injury."

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
German, French, Italian > English
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Tel. +41 77 4096132
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch




On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "casualty"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the US Navy's system of reporting and remaing abreast of unit operational
> readiness, failed equipment or machinery is termed a "casualty".
>
> The formatted report to higher authority is a CASREP. Â This has become a
> verb, e.g., "We have to casrep the air search radar"
>
> Bill P
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Victor Steinbok" <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 11:15 AM
> Subject: Re: "casualty"
>
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "casualty"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Â OK, OED is not the only dictionary on the planet. The top-level
>> OneLook definitions:
>>
>>> ? noun: Â a decrease of military personnel or equipment
>>> ? noun: Â someone injured or killed in an accident
>>> ? noun: Â someone injured or killed or captured or missing in a
>>> military engagement
>>> ? noun: Â an accident that causes someone to die
>>
>> Note that there is even an ambiguity between first, second and third
>> definitions. There is confusion between second and fourth as well,
>> although, obviously, not between first and fourth.
>>
>> Wiktionary adds two more for "casualty":
>>
>>> Something that happens by chance, especially an unfortunate event; an
>>> accident, a disaster.
>>> (UK) The accident and emergency department of a hospital
>>
>> and one more for "casualties":
>>
>>> The collective tally of injuries and fatalities of an event.
>>
>> Note that this /does not/ include the missing or captured. In fact, it's
>> been quite some time since I've heard anyone refer to captured soldiers
>> as "casualties", but Jon has been around much longer than I and has
>> spoken the language longer still.
>>
>> MWD of Law adds the insurance use (as in "life and casualty"):
>>
>>> something lost, stolen, damaged, or destroyed
>>
>> Then, of course, there is Nabokov:
>>
>>> I wonder where you got your statistics when you say that Theirs
>>> executed more people than did the Terreur? I object to this kind of
>>> excuse for two reasons. Although from a Christian's or a
>>> mathematician's point of view a thousand people killed in battle a
>>> hundred years ago equal a thousand people killed in a battle of today,
>>> historically the first definition is "slaughter" and the second "some
>>> casualties." Secondly: one cannot compare the slapdash suppression,
>>> however abominable, of a revolt with the thorough application of a
>>> system of murder.
>>
>> I don't find the use as problematic as Jon does. Perhaps it's a
>> generations gap. When did we start worrying about the evolution of words
>> into multiple, even overlapping, meanings? I always thought this was
>> something we left to the French...
>>
>> Â  Â  VS-)
>>
>>
>> On 10/13/2010 7:58 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>>> The passage uses the term "casualties" as a synonym for "dead
>>> causalities". I think that Jon finds this "very misleading and to be
>>> deplored".
>>> The use of "casualties" with this constrained meaning is non-ambiguous
>>> in this example because the previous sentence says "worthy monument to
>>> our dead". It does not say "worthy monument to our dead and wounded".
>>>
>>> I am reminded of this riddle:
>>> Question: A planes crashes on the US-Canada border. Where are the
>>> survivors buried?
>>> Answer: Survivors are not buried.
>>>
>>> Here is an similar riddle I just constructed (or remembered).
>>> Question: A planes crashes on the US-Canada border. One of the
>>> casualties is not buried for more than 50 years. Why not?
>>
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