A newspeak / new language question.

January 16, 2006 2:32 PM

A newspeak / new language question.

On the news last week I heard (yet another) sad story about a suicide bombing in Iraq. The reporter said:

"Two suicide bombers dressed as police officers approached the crowd at the gate, one detonated his bomb vest and killed x people. The other bomber was confronted by police officers and was shot dead, but managed to detonate his bomb nonetheless"

Or words to that effect. While I certainly do not wish to detract from the utter horror of the situation on the ground, I feel this is yet another example of "newspeak".

Was this guy a suicide bomber? I know he was of course (he did intend to kill himself and others), but did he accomplish his aim of being a suicide bomber, or is the newsreader's statement simply another bland, ill-thought-out non-sequitur?

Who killed him? Did he kill himself or did the police?

posted by snailer to media & arts (14 comments total)

Why is it a non-sequitur to call someone who tried to kill themselves and failed a suicide bomber? A suicide door on a car is still called a suicide door even if no one ever died because of it.

Not like suicide is a very common adjective.
posted by delmoi at 2:41 PM on January 16, 2006

I'd have to agree, the guy was attempting to blow up a bomb and kill himself. It's not like they didn't call kamikaze something different if they had their planes shot out from under them or crashed into the sea. The intent is still there. Yes, there are a lot of horrific euphemisms out there, but this one is fairly accurate I think.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:44 PM on January 16, 2006

The non-sequitor is that it says police shot him dead, but that he also managed to set off his bomb, not that he was called a suicide bomber.

Looks like lousy writing to me. Perhaps he was shot with what would have been a fatal wound, and then expedited his exit with the bomb?
posted by I Love Tacos at 2:47 PM on January 16, 2006

hmm... maybe I didn't explain myself properly.

What do you think, did this guy die by his own hand or by the policeman's? When I said it didn't follow, I meant that he can't be killed and commit suicide, so what was it?

If the news report said he was shot, then blew himself up, then yes. But "shot dead", then suicide bomb, that can't happen? Or can it? (I'm not being sarky here, just trying to pose the question more clearly)

Thanks!
posted by snailer at 2:50 PM on January 16, 2006

It's possible that he was killed by the policeman but the bomb was equipped with a dead man's switch.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:55 PM on January 16, 2006

Also, I don't think there's anything linguistically strange about describing a guy who straps on a bomb vest and then goes off to blow up a bunch of people as a "suicide bomber", regardless of exactly how he meets his end. Maybe a little sloppy, if you're being journalistically scrupulous, but the quote you've cited is unambiguous.

I have a bigger problem with your use of the word "newspeak" to describe it. It strikes me as an example of plus ungood duckspeak, frankly.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:05 PM on January 16, 2006

It seems that "shot dead" could have just been left at "shot" and the sentence would have been less confusing.

The "dead" part of "shot dead" may have just been an assumption coming from the observation of massive gunfire, or the visible effects of same on the bomber's body, shortly before the bomb detonated - very likely with a dead man's switch as mr_roboto pointed out.
posted by Tubes at 3:15 PM on January 16, 2006

heh.

dead man's switch is the most probable explanation.

He was guilty of the thoughtcrime of suicide bombing but vaporized before he could carry it out.

thanks mr_roboto, made me think a bit more, a good thing at any rate.
posted by snailer at 3:16 PM on January 16, 2006

The reading of the article does not suggest a dead man's switch, as that would not require his active intervention, which the piece suggests occurred.

I read it to mean that: He was shot, and although the resulting wounds would have been fatal, before his death he managed to set off the bomb.

It's not fucking newspeak, it's terse speak. The writer has chosen fewer words to take up less time while getting over the same meaning to the vast majority of the audience.

Newspeak implies that words are being chosen to spin the actual facts for a given agenda. There is no evidence of that anywhere in that article. You're crying wolf.
posted by bonaldi at 3:26 PM on January 16, 2006

(Unless you think that loads of bombers are being killed by the police and then reported to us as suicide bombers, which occam suggests is not the case.)
posted by bonaldi at 3:27 PM on January 16, 2006

Consider that the media outlet in question has a style guide, where there is a predetermined, agreed-upon naming convention for most things. It's likely that the style guide has determined that whether or not anything actually happens, anyone that straps a bomb to himself with the intent of detonating it in order to kill and/or injure others is termed a "suicide bomber."
posted by frogan at 3:36 PM on January 16, 2006

In the spirit of the deadman switch, the bomb could also have operated on a short timer, activated before the (presumed) fatal gunshots.
posted by cortex at 3:55 PM on January 16, 2006

And, as an analogy, one would call a man with a scoped rifle perched in a hidden vantage a sniper regardless of whether he had ever sniped.

Guy with bomb strapped to chest and intending to blow himself and others up = suicide bomber.
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on January 16, 2006

The only newspeak that I associate with suicide bombers belongs to FauxNews
posted by Neiltupper at 3:59 PM on January 16, 2006