Wrath of ...
Over at headsup: the blog fev has collected a bunch of headlines and ledes about... Well, it's pretty obvious:
Charlotte teen escapes Dean's wrathfev's complaining about the use of "wrath" on a stylistic basis. Certainly a valid complaint.
City man dodges Dean's wrath
Mexico, Belize brace for Dean's wrath
Jamaica feels Dean's wrath
Jamaica smashed by wrath of Dean
Travel plans altered by wrath of Dean
The wrath of Dean was even felt in space, where Endeavour astronauts scaled back their last spacewalk yesterday and planned to land the space shuttle Tuesday, a day early, NASA said.
A boat sinks in Fort de France, Martinique, after it takes on water from Hurricane Dean's wrath. The storm was Category 3 when it hit land.
While much of the island escaped Hurricane Dean's wrath, the southernmost tip was not so lucky.
Cancún still could face winds with tropical storm force - forecast to extend over about 75,000 square miles, about the size of Nebraska or South Dakota - but city officials told the public Monday night that the area should escape the worst of Dean's wrath.
Strong winds blew down trees in southern towns near the Haitian border but the country was largely spared Dean's wrath.
But, despite its name, Dean is just a storm. Storms don't have emotions. Dean's not "wrathful"; it's indifferent.
This kind of language is essentially religious; it ascribes emotions to a force of nature. The next logical step is to plead with the wrathful Dean to spare you, or thank him for having done so. However, it's God who gets the prayers and praise. And it's really God - if anyone - who is to blame for Dean's "wrath". I suppose newspapers can't quite write "Haiti was largely spared God's wrath"...
Labels: freethought, media
3 Comments:
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At 12:36 PM, August 22, 2007
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 2:49 PM, August 22, 2007
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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At 2:50 PM, August 22, 2007
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Religious? Maybe. Certainly we think of "wrath" in a mostly archaic context these days (I can't imagine your average teen saying, "I must be home by 11, or I shall incur my father's wrath!"), but I think Shakepearean, as much as Biblical.
In any case, I think it's a combination of two factors:
1. News hype, which is truly excessive these days. Every storm is "wrathful", every death is "tragic", every murder is "gruesome". Gotta snag those viewers.
2. News turning into catch phrases. Think "motorist Rodney King," for example. Once the media latch onto a description, they use it exclusively. Once we have "the wrath of Dean," everyone uses it, always.
[BTW, the first couple of times I saw it in passing, I momentarily wondered why Howard was so angry.]
Religious in a general sense, that is: a pantheistic or animistic religion that attributes sentience to the universe.
But, yes, most of its overuse is lazy succumbing to cliché, which is what fev was annoyed about.
Or - more charitably - like Homer: set epithets. "Wine-dark sea, rosy-fingered Dawn, wrathful Dean" -
No. Too charitable.
(I work with a guy called Dean. It's funny. He's tired of it, though.)
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