That Must Have Been Messy
From a news story on the CTV website: Dozens rescued after B.C. gondola tower collapses
Emergency crews evacuated dozens of skiers and snowboarders who were left stranded aboard sagging gondola cars when a support tower collapsed Tuesday.
and
By 6:15 p.m., all of the passengers had been evacuated, CTV B.C. reported.
The skiers and snowboarders were evacuated? Ewww!
“Evacuate” means to remove things from. If you evacuate a town or a building, it means you remove all the people from said town or building. If you evacuate a gondola car, you remove the skiers and snowboarders from the gondola car.
If you evacuate the skiers and snowboarders, however, it means you are taking their insides out. Messy.
(Fortunately, no one was seriously injured [although this would undoubtedly have been really scary!], so I feel OK about picking on the incorrect word usage in this news story).
Comments |6|
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I’ve always been under the impression that “evacuate” used on it’s own in a story involving some sort of calamity or military that it was taken for granted that it meant “moving people out of harm’s way” rather than “people voiding the contents of their bowels”.
But I’m not as picky as you. 😉
I’ve always been under the impression that the possessive version is “its” not “it’s”… but then, I’m picky. 😉
Oops.
Actually, re-reading what I wrote reveals that I absolutely suck at grammar.
Too funny!
Actually, I’ll bet there was a LOT of evacuting going on in the gondolas when that tower collapsed!!! 🙂