Vehicular homocide?

[Dr Mordrid]

Felt this way myself a few times.....mostly after owning a Ford

http://www.courttv.com/people/2005/0420/car_ap.html

LAUDERDALE-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. (AP) —

A man with car trouble is in trouble after shooting five rounds into the hood of his Chrysler "to put my car out of its misery."

John McGivney, 64, shot his 1994 LeBaron with a .380-caliber semiautomatic, Broward County sheriff's deputies said.

When the property manager at his apartment complex asked what he was doing, McGivney said, "I'm putting my car out of its misery." He tucked his gun in a pocket and went back inside.

He was arrested Friday on a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in public. He posted $100 bail Saturday.

McGivney said the car has been giving him trouble for years and had "outlived its usefulness." He called the shooting "dumb" and worries he will be evicted. But he doesn't regret it.

"I think every guy in the universe has wanted to do it," McGivney told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "It was worth every damn minute in that jail."

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

ROFL.. nice to see someone express themselves like that..

[Nowhere]

Uhmm...I'd say the opposite

[Kurt]

Hom*I*cide. HOMOcide is quite a different thing....

[Brian Ellis]

Hom*I*cide. HOMOcide is quite a different thing....

A Dr M type Freudian slip????

[Dr Mordrid]

No.

Your error is in assuming that the prefix "homo" only refers to homosexuality when in fact it does not, at least outside ot the world of the terminally politically correct

The prefix "homo" actually has two meaning; one from Greek and one from Latin, and they are quite different.

In Greek homo means "same", which is how it ended up in the term "homosexual", which literally means one who prefers the same sex.

On the other hand in Latin homo means "man" or "human", which is how it ended up in scientific terms like homo sapiens (wise man) or the genus "Homo", of which we are all a part...gay or not.

As for the spelling "homicide"...this is directly derived from the Latin "homicidium", which comes from "homo" (human) + "caedere" (to cut or kill)

So...while "homicide" is correct as a direct derivation of homicidium, so is "homocide" (human + kill) and this latter form is very commonly used in the US.

Dr. Mordrid

[Marshmallowman]

ok, we should call it motorcide

[Brian Ellis]

So...while "homicide" is correct as a direct derivation of homicidium, so is "homocide" (human + kill) and this latter form is very commonly used in the US.

If it is commonly used in the US, then the US is WRONG. Neither Oxford nor Merriam-Webster list 'homocide', not even as alternate spellings.

If you Google homocide, it comes up with 'Do you mean homicide?' and some 34,000 listings (the first page shows a number stating it is a misspelling or using it for other meanings), while homicide produces over 4½ million.

Sorry, but your apology is not watertight.

[RichL]

ok, we should call it motorcide

Autocide has a nice ring to it, or you could get more accurate and call it Chryslercide, or Fordicide.

[Kurt]

If it is commonly used in the US, then the US is WRONG. Neither Oxford nor Merriam-Webster list 'homocide', not even as alternate spellings.

If you Google homocide, it comes up with 'Do you mean homicide?' and some 34,000 listings (the first page shows a number stating it is a misspelling or using it for other meanings), while homicide produces over 4½ million.

Sorry, but your apology is not watertight.

You could call it poetic license.

Homocide is definitely not a proper dictionnary word, but is, in this context, very "artful"

[FB] Even if most of the US is WRONG in general [/FB]

[xortam]

... Sorry, but your apology is not watertight.

Did you expect an admission of fault?

[Dr Mordrid]

I hardly think how Google refers to a word is indicative of anything

Like I said; homicide is correct, but lots of words that technically are not have still make it into the lexicon and eventually become "correct".

Brian's misgivings aside, references to "homocide" can be found not only in the US and Canadian media but legal, university and government texts. I've seen both forms in the same legal papers.

How commonly used is "homocide"? Enough so that it was the form used exclusively by no less than former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Warren Burger

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

... jokey stories about how Chief Justice Warren Burger used to misspell homicide as "homocide" and Associate Justice Harry Blackmun (whose papers were recently released) used to circle the misspelling angrily when commenting on the Chief Justice's draft opinions. (from the University's of Pennsylvania Language Log)

And, I suppose that because anyone as illustrious as a VicePrez of the USA (and a Republican, to boot) spelled a tuberous root vegetable as potatoe, that makes it an official orthography? PLEEEZE

Anyone can make a spelling error or a typo, even a Chief Justice or a VP or a contributor to this forum, but that does not make the error anything closer to being correct or an excuse for perpetuating it. Kurt jokingly pointed it out (which, for my sins, I jokingly added to) but you then get on your high horse to pretend that there was no error. Sorry, but you're not infallible, any more than those who spell potato with an e.

[KvHagedorn]

Supposedly the "potatoe" thing was misspelled on the flash card. Quayle went to some school for a photo-op or some such and was using the flash cards.. if this story is true and the flash card was wrong, one just wonders HOW it might have come to be wrong and then come to be handed to the Republican VP to use on camera.. in my experience most teachers (particularly in the early grades) are smug liberals who would love to have had Quayle make a fool of himself on national TV. Still, he relied on the card and not his brain, or just was not paying attention and got tripped up. That often happens when people are trying to stab you in the back all the time.

[Umfriend]

Still, he relied on the card and not his brain

The way I undertand it, with Quayle, that was good thinking!