People, not cattle

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 12:00 pm

At least 21 people were killed and at least 50 were injured after a fight in a crowded South Side Chicago nightclub early this morning turned into a stampede, authorities said. (Chicago Tribune)***Let's just say that "stampede" is a dehumanizing term.***

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:09 pm

this came up about 10 years ago at the Chicago Sun-Times, but in a different context (no real panic or deaths involved, if i recall). the people who objected had a point then.in today's case, tho, i think the term is defensible. perhaps people acted in an inhuman way. from the reports of witnesses, that might be the case.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:37 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:

in today's case, tho, i think the term is defensible. perhaps people acted in an inhuman way. from the reports of witnesses, that might be the case.<hr></blockquote>Maybe. Maybe not. They were still human beings. It's easy and better to write it differently.

catwoman · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 5:07 pm

I would argue that 'stampeding' is an action that can be committed by any group of confused, frightened creatures looking to escape a situation & that it's not dehumanizing. The thing that bothers me about its use in this instance is that conditions do not seem to have been conducive to stampeding anyway. A minor point, perhaps, but these poor people packed into that space did not even have room to pick up the kind of momentum that I would associate with stampeding. Any suggestions, blanp, on a subsitute? Along those lines, we probably cannot classify this as a 'tragedy' unless one considers the desire to drink & dance under unsafe circumstances to be a damning character flaw. So, if one wants to write anything other than 'Accident kills 21 on S. Side,' what are our options? And I am not assuming that *you*, phil would want to write anything other than that, but *I* might.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 5:39 pm

I understand blanp's point, but I, too, would like to know what the substitute for "stampede" would be. My dictionary defines stampede as "a sudden, headlong rush or flight, as of a herd of cattle." Isn't that what happened here?

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 5:46 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by ADKbrown:
I understand blanp's point, but I, too, would like to know what the substitute for "stampede" would be. My dictionary defines stampede as "a sudden, headlong rush or flight, as of a herd of cattle." Isn't that what happened here?<hr></blockquote>***Apparently not.Something like this would work and has a little more information than the original lead:At least 21 people died in a South Side nightclub this morning, crushed and trampled as they fled in fear of a chemical spray used to stop a fight.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 7:28 pm

For that matter, did they truly flee *in fear*? Maybe some fled resolutely as a matter of self-preservation. Maybe some were drunk or high and exited emotionless, oblivious to the carnage. The lede aside, we need to come up with a headline here, and *stampede* still applies. For the record, the city's police chief called it a stampede. Put it in quotes, if you'd like. Survivors, i would imagine, might use even more "dehumanizing" terms.

rumymommy · **Joined:** Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 138

I'll just cite Webster's second definition of "A confused, headlong rush or flight of a large group of people."

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Feb 17, 2003 11:49 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
For that matter, did they truly flee *in fear*? <hr></blockquote>I said "something like," Mr. Deliberately Provocative. Stampede is out. Period.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 18, 2003 6:50 am

Well then.Something like stampede it is ...

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