Flood defences used to be overwhelmed, now they're "overtopped". I haven't seen this made-up word used in the print media and I'm pretty sure I haven't heard it on other news channels. If it is just the BBC why do they feel they have to infantilise the language?
It's because they can't actually speak English. Their inability to use their native language effectively and efficiently prevents them from being able to describe events, so they invent words to compensate for that fact. It's all a product of the "it doesn't matter what they say (or write) as long as you can understand what they mean" education system that has been destroying the English language for years.
Them spin doctors are always producing words designed to distract, diffuse or minimise a situation where necessary. There is no mistaking what overwhelmed means and is easily linked with negativity/despair whereas overtopped is a neutral word (so far).
Most would miss the word overtopped as it doesn't really make sense It was used to guide you away from the fact that the flood defences could not cope with that amount of water Don't panic anyone keep calm don't go overtopped
Fin, this example of the misuse of language has nothing to do with partisanship and less than nothing with questions of Scottish separatism and unionism. There are other things in life which are not defined by or even remotely connected to minority interest politics. Please stop trying to force Scottish independence grievances into every thread.
Sometimes a flood defence or a dam is "overwhelmed", meaning that it has been breached and destroyed. Sometimes the defence remains whole and integral still, but the water has reached such a high level that it has poured over the top - "overtopped". It appears to me the BBC has chosen its words carefully and used them with accuracy and precision in recent reports. Thanks though, for alerting us all to the linguistic shortcomings not of the BBC but of yourself.
A slight diversion from the stupid speak............but it still comes down to the same undeducated twits............ ....so how the hell does anyone expect this and previous governments to have done anything real and sensible about flooding; when the defences built on the Fosse river failed because water got in the electric control units..........ie; the defences were flooded.
i am not. it's just my area of interest. please write to the bum and ask them to stop bringing it up 20 times a day every day. if they attempt to misrepresent to me what makes you think they dont misrepresent about any subject. please put me on ignore if it annoys.
Who actually used the word? A news studio presenter, or a local 'flood correspondant' using terms in use locally? The BBC long ago ceased to be a bastion of the correct use of English - it seems we are 'now all sat' listening, not to the evolution of the spoken word, as some would have it, but to a new form of verbal defecation
When was the last time you "overtopped" the bath? WTF is wrong with "overflowed" Having worked in a previous incarnation for a US multi, the Americans were/are still the best at this particular genre of speek. To be balanced I just checked "overtop" in Meriam's & its allegedly been in use since 1954
Using the word "overtop" is a means of minimising the extent of what is happening in terms of flooding. The implication here is that the flood defences were almost good enough to stop the flooding but didn't quite manage to do so. By further implication, the suggestion is that perhaps by making the defences just a little bit higher, they would have held. A brilliant way of displacing concern away from the causes of flooding (which will be expensive to address) and onto the simplistic idea that we can "just build them a little higher and we'll be fine". Misdirection indeed. "Overwhelmed" is linguistically correct - English being the sort of language where a word can have several different, yet linked, meanings. I noticed that Pete has failed to criticise the word in question on the grounds that it implied that the water had "overpowered the defences in thought or feeling" (Meriam-Webster). To criticise the usage of the word "overwhelm" on the basis that some of its meanings and connotations are inaccurate is disingenuous, to say the least. "Overwhelmed" has a strong emotional tag attached to it; "overtopped" is somewhat vague by comparison, neutral in effect and intent. The use of one word in favour of the other tells us much more about the intent of the writer than it does his (lack of an) Oxbridge education. But we all knew that already, didn't we?
In the building trade and architectural profession "overwhelm" is an exact technical term used in specific reference to guttering, drainage and water deflection systems which have been inundated by a quantity of water which exceeds their design capacity. It does not imply that they have been destroyed or even damaged only that more water is flowing into them than they are capable of carrying. If guttering is blocked it "overflows". If it is flowing unimpeded but cannot transmit the volume of water demanded of it, it is "overwhelmed". If you discharge a high volume downpipe directly above the head flashing of a roof light in a shallow pitched roof, that flashing can be "overwhelmed" and the roof light will leak but it will not be damaged in any way and the leaking will cease when the water flow has been brought back within design capacity. When flood defences are broken open or swept away by an excess weight of water they are "breached". I think my understanding of the linguistics in this case is perfectly clear.
Seperatism is another good example of a made of word designed to invoke the sense of moving away from the norm, as if the union is the status quo. Scotland in the Union = 308 years Scotland as an independent country = 700 or so years.
