[Ads-l] Toxic leak

[Chris Waigl]

As I understand (from a 5 min scan of the news and my limited
university-level training in chemistry) this was a pressurized tank
containing chlorine gas that suffered a mechanical injury after being
dropped. This led to what is technically an explosive decompression - and I
think it's fine to call it an explosion. So chlorine gas leaked very fast
and spread pretty far, and it's poisonous.

So to me, both leak and explosion are fine here, and both are part of the
story. For me, "leak" doesn't at all imply "constrained".

NOTE that I'm not an expert, and undoubtedly experts will elucidate the
whole sequence.

(Also, a common scenario for leaks that lead to explosions is that there is
a breach in containment (defective valve, crack, hole...) of a substance,
which then leaks out, and forms an explosive or reactive compound in
contact with water or air. Explosions then might be set up by sparks, or
heat, or spontaneously...)

On Tue, Jun 28, 2022 at 10:33 AM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> As far as I know, chlorine doesn't explode. Something else must have
> exploded, sending the chlorine outward. So it is possible to have both an
> explosion and a leak caused by the explosion.
>
> On Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 1:53 PM victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Most news organizations are reporting on an accident in the Port of Aqaba
> > that resulted in deaths. Most reports refer to it as some kind of "leak".
> > That caught my attention because that doesn't match my understanding of
> the
> > word "leak". Whether the leak is liquid, gaseous, electric or
> information,
> > it implies an undesired but constrained release or escape from relative
> > confinement. It may lead to "explosion" (scandal, in the case of
> > information leak) and result in death (e.g., electrocution or
> suffocation)
> > but an explosion itself is not a leak. I've verified the OED entry and it
> > mostly conforms to my expectations.
> >
> > If you watch the video, you see a large container dropped from a crane,
> > resulting in an explosion, then people (and a truck) trying to outrun the
> > toxic orange blast wave. It's an explosion, an instant release. If
> > referring go this as a "leak" one might as well refer to exploding
> nuclear
> > bombs as "radiation leaks".
> >
> > As a matter of fact, the OED entry should be updated to include radiation
> > leak - in two senses, in fact, leaking from and leaking into (many Star
> > Trek points of reference for both, among many other sources).
> >
> > CNN: Toxic gas leak in Jordan kills at least 12 people, injures hundreds.
> >
> >
> https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/27/middleeast/jordan-toxic-gas-leak-aqaba-port-intl/index.html
> >
> >
> > VS-)
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu

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