On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Mark Brader wrote:

Laurence Payne writes:

... let's not descend into tabloid exaggerations. You and the driver
may have been shocked. But you wouldn't be "in shock". That's a
specific medical condition. ...

Let's not assume that words or phrases have only one meaning, either.

Some words or phrases *do* have only one meaning - if i said "i've got a
bit of thrombosis", meaning i had a stitch, that would be wrong, wouldn't
it? The term "in shock" refers to hypovolemic shock, and always has done;
shock was not something you could be _in_ until that use was coined. It's
true that people have started using it to mean 'shocked', but, like people
using 'flu' to mean 'a bad cold', it's wrong.

tom

--
This should be on ox.boring, shouldn't it?