this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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It did until people kept misusing it like this.
It's a combination of electricity and execution. If you survived you were just shocked. If you died you were electrocuted.
I also had no idea that this was the meaning. Since I electrocuted myself with a fork and an outlet as a child I have the cool feature of being undead. Dope.
Interesting. I never knew that about it's etymology.
I just looked it up quickly and it seems to be way more nuanced than that. According to at least one article, it was used prior to the first electrical execution in 1899 as a means of referring to a non-fatal shock.
https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/electrocution-a-shocking-misuse/
Either way, I think it's splitting hairs. It's common and acceptable usage anymore to use that term meaning a non-fatal shock. So the clarification in the title doesn't come across as redundant to me.
Just because people have been wrong since 1899, it doesn’t mean we should put up with it.
It’s becoming, as they say, a big of a problem.
The real shock is that words somehow change meaning over time…