infected by radiation poisoning

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/4/2011 11:46 AM, victor steinbok wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>I don't have OED access this minute (and for another week), but I'd
>want to look at the examples. It would be interesting to see if there
>is any frequency to "infected with poison", which is still different
>from "infected with ... poisoning". There is also a difference between
>"infected with the [Holy] Spirit" and "infected with radiation
>poisoning".

"Infected with the "... Spirit" belongs to one of
the later, less literal/physical/medical senses (4b and ff.) that I omitted.

>But I would not at all be surprised if I've fallen into
>the recency fallacy on this one.

My guess.  But I agree that if someone says "I've
been infected", I look for horses, not zebras (germs, not radioactivity).

>I had to think about that expression
>for a bit and still came to the conclusion that it was odd. A part of
>the problem, for me, is that in radiation poisoning the agent is
>inanimate. Can one be "infected with a headache"? "infected with a
>stroke"? "infected with broken bones"? I wonder, because these are
>closer to radiation than to germs or spirit--but there is no "personal
>or material agent" (except for someone who might have broken the
>bones, a blood clot that might have caused the stroke, etc.). Can one
>be infected with a hereditary disorder or a genetic mutation of any
>kind? Nominally, none of these would be barred by these definitions.

To me the distinction is that both germs and
radiation are "agents" that can "infect", whereas
headache, stroke, broken bones are
agent-unknown.  Although some possibly might say
things like "infected [by an ear-wig] with a
headache", when an agent is hypothesized.

>Of course, 1. would apply to poisons (it literally mentions them), but
>then it's "obsolete or rare"--and perhaps was rare before it was
>obsolete. The same can be said about 2. And 3. and 4. are closer to
>the currently standard meaning--but has the meaning narrowed or are
>the lemmas simply too broad?

Perhaps the meaning (of 1b, 2, and 3) has
re-broadened, or perhaps they have not been
looked at more recently than 1853, 1693, and 1885 respectively.

Joel


>VS-)
>
>PS: no need to post all the examples on my account. I'll have access
>again in a few days.
>
>On 8/4/11, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > Seems like an old and honored sense.  From the OED:
> >
> > To imbue a person or thing with certain (esp.
> > bad) qualities; said either of the personal or material agent.
> >
> >   1. trans. To affect, influence, or imbue with
> > some quality or property by immersion or infusion.
> > b. To impregnate or imbue with some qualifying
> > substance, or active principle, as poison, or
> > salt; to taint. Obs. or rare.  (1550 through 1853)
> >
> > †2. To affect injuriously or unpleasantly; to
> > spoil or corrupt by noxious influence, admixture,
> > or alloy; to adulterate. Obs.  (1440 through 1693)
> >
> > 3. To impregnate or taint with deleterious
> > qualities; to fill (the air, etc.) with noxious
> > corruption or the germs of disease; to render
> > injurious to health.  [I.e., not only with germs.]  (1480 through 1885
> >
> > 4. a. To affect (a person, animal, or part of the
> > body) with disease; to communicate a morbific
> > virus or noxious germs so as to generate disease;
> > to act upon by infection or contagion. Also absol.  (c1386 through 1845)
> >
> > [And then various senses less literally related to noxiousness or disease.]
> >
> > Joel
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org