Strangle to death

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Pakku - 01 Jul 2009 18:13 GMT

I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or cutting
off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most of the
dictionaries there have "kill" in their definition.

But, I have come across a lot of headlines today along the lines of
"Child strangled to death by python". The very first entry on Google
news has 5 occurrences of this.

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Pat Durkin - 01 Jul 2009 21:30 GMT

> I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or cutting
> off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most of the
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> "Child strangled to death by python". The very first entry on Google
> news has 5 occurrences of this.

The concept of "strangulation" does not require a cutting off of oxygen
alone.
Various vascular or intestinal structures may be "strangled" if twisted
too much by certain accidents. For example, hiatus hernias can become
strangulated when they slip ithough loose areas of the diaphragm and
become "trapped". Or adhesions resulting from surgeries may cause
strangulation of parts of the bowel or of blood vessels. These
strangulations may result in pain, infection and even death, though they
are not done by any human agent acting with intent to kill, and they may
be corrected by appropriate treatment.

Seems to me I have heard the term "torsion" applied to some of these.

http://tinyurl.com/lrpm2d
(
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120118463/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 )

Another site: Hepatic lobe torsion in a horse

Oh, yes: Intussusception - telescoping of the intestine in which one
segment of the intestine passes inside an adjacent segment of intestine,
which causes occlusion of the lumen and often the blood supply.
(From
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2086/ANSI-3921web.pdf
Sorry, I can't use TinyUrl here.)

Say, I think I first heard about that on the TV program "All Creatures
Great and Small".

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Irwell - 02 Jul 2009 00:53 GMT

>> I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or cutting
>> off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most of the
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
> Say, I think I first heard about that on the TV program "All Creatures
> Great and Small".

"I've wrangled, I've tangled,I've bloody well near strangled"

To the tune of the Old Ash Grove,

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Eric Walker - 02 Jul 2009 00:56 GMT

The OED suggests that strangulation need not be fatal. Sense 1.a of
"strangle" (transitive) is indeed to kill by strangulation, 1.b is
figurative, but 1.c is "to constrict painfully [the neck or throat]".

Sense 4, intransitive, is "to be choked or suffocated"; the examples
suggest it need not be fatal choking or suffocation.

I would imagine that by now the idea of killing as a necessary component
has receded sufficiently that for exactness it needs to be specified.

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Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/

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R H Draney - 02 Jul 2009 02:39 GMT

Eric Walker filted:

>> I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or cutting
>> off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most of the
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>I would imagine that by now the idea of killing as a necessary component
>has receded sufficiently that for exactness it needs to be specified.

We have, in the past, had much this same conversation centered around the word
"electrocuted"....r

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A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?

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Mark Brader - 02 Jul 2009 06:05 GMT

"Pakku":

>> I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or
>> cutting off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>> "Child strangled to death by python". The very first entry on Google
>> news has 5 occurrences of this.

Eric Walker:

> The OED suggests that strangulation need not be fatal. Sense 1.a of
> "strangle" (transitive) is indeed to kill by strangulation, 1.b is
> figurative, but 1.c is "to constrict painfully [the neck or throat]".

Eric apparently thinks that Pakku posted this because he or she
thinks that the "to death" part is redundant. As explained, it's
really not.

What I do find striking is the use of the word "strangled" at all.
This tragedy involved a python 12 feet long and an 2-year-old girl.
Wouldn't a snake that large have asphyxiated her by pressure around
the lungs rather than the neck?

(If so, I imagine the explanation is that the Sumter County Sheriff's
office carelessly used the word and the reoprters quoted what they said.)

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Mark Brader, Toronto "To great evils we submit; we resent
msb@vex.net little provocations." -- W. Hazlitt, 1822

My text in this article is in the public domain.

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Christian Weisgerber - 02 Jul 2009 13:38 GMT

Clearly, English is in dire need of a resultative prefix
(cf. German "würgen" -> "erwürgen").

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Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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Steve Hayes - 02 Jul 2009 05:55 GMT

>I'd always thought that strangle meant to kill by choking, or cutting
>off airflow. I looked up strangle on onelook and most of the
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>"Child strangled to death by python". The very first entry on Google
>news has 5 occurrences of this.

It's quite conceivable that it would be, if a python wrapped itself around the
child's neck, which I assume is what happened.

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Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

Strangle to death