re: #19 Charles Johnson

As a life-long word nerd, I always get a twinge of irritation when someone describes events like the San Bernardino attacks as “tragedy.” Because the classical definition of tragedy is a story in which the eventual victim brings about his or her own downfall, through hubris or arrogance or egomania or plain bad luck.

I realize “tragedy” has turned into a synonym for “atrocity,” but when people use it to describe an event like San Bernardino it just feels wrong to me because those people did NOT bring this on themselves.

My name is Charles and I’m a word nerd.

When I am not wearing my village trustee hat, my disabled vet hat, or my flag committee chair hat, I wear my erotic Romance novel editor hat. (How did I get elected to anything in this state?)

As Goodreads attributes to Ian Fleming: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”