The curious case of the near miss 2

[kwbMitel]

I was reading about the asteroid that will make a close approach to Earth tomorrow in what was termed a "near miss"

I understand what is meant by this term but I have issues with its use.

Does near miss qualify as idiom to circumvent its self contradiction?

Just insert near in front of any other appropriate verb to get my meaning

e.g.
Near drowning = not drowned
Near death = not dead
Near miss = actual miss?

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[SamBones]

Regarding Little Boy, that seems to be mostly semantics. Yes, the bomb itself did not "hit" Hiroshima, but the explosion surely did.

 

[SantaMufasa]

CC,

I agree totally with your semantic analysis. I do, however, see the logic of saying, "The two planes were involved in a near miss," meaning that the two aircraft were involved in a "near miss" versus, say, the daily occurrences of aircraft that are routinely in a "far miss" event. The semantic analysis would be that the planes missed each other in dangerously near proximity.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> The semantic analysis would be that the planes missed each other in dangerously near proximity.
That's not a semantic analysis; that's the definition of the idiom 'near miss'. The reason that 'near miss' is an idiom is because is fails semantic analysis. The phrase doesn't mean what the individual words mean.

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[Olaf Doschke]

the meaning of the phrase "near miss" is different than the meaning of the adjective 'near' applied to the noun 'miss'. And that, in a nutshell, is the semantic disconnect.

I still don't see that semantic disconnection everybody seems to see, but me.

Near has more than one meaning and you just have to think about the right one for the context, and then it's not an idiom. It simply means, what it says.

Now we could begin to argue f something can be called miss or hit, if there never has been any aim to hit or to miss.

If you insist on some of the menaings mentioned in

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/near,

which make a near miss not a miss, then you're right, but it's not necessarily that way. So what I would second is, that you can interpret this wrong so there are more precise terms you could use. But's far from being a clear case of an idiom.

If you insiss near miss must have the same meaning literally as near death, then you neglect the other meanings of near, don't you? If you insist near+noun always has to have the same meaning for near, then you're neglecting the variety and felxibility of language. You're seeing this too systematic in my oppinion. That's how you could press it into a rule, a higher order, or schema. That's the mindset of a developer, isn't it?

Bye, Olaf.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> If you insiss near miss must have the same meaning literally as near death, then you neglect the other meanings of near, don't you?
I don't believe I'm neglecting any definition of near; however, neither am I giving it a definition that it doesn't have.

Now, I'll be more than happy to discuss a grammatically valid parsing of any sentence with the phrase 'near miss' that doesn't have 'near' as an adjective modifying the noun 'miss'. We can see where that leads us.
Also, I'll be happy to consider any definition of the adjective 'miss' that means the affected noun IS realized. And we can see where that leads us.
But until then, I'll stand by 'near miss' as an idiom because that phrase does not mean what its individual words mean.

==> But's far from being a clear case of an idiom.
For what it's worth, 'a near miss' is defined in the same free dictionary you reference. It's found in the idioms section.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+near+miss

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[Olaf Doschke]

Thanks for pointing to that idiom section.

I still see no idiom in it. A near miss is a miss and it occurred near.

I will never be convinced, I can rather live with having a false assumption about the english language. It's not my native tongue anyway. I only can agree it's an awkward description and I'll perhaps avoid it's usage, if it's so unpleasant for some here. For me it's really a very description of what happend in regard to the aseroid missing earth in a asronimacally near distance.

Just for the record. The meteroids hitting russia were not related to the asteroid 2012 DA14, which approached earth from south.

I doubt this will change your picture of that term, but all your efforts also don't change mine. Maybe I'm too illitarate for your arguments.

In your mindset it can only be described as a near hit as in 3b. Just barely avoided: a near hit by the incendiary bomb.
But a hit is a hit, a miss is a miss in this case. A near death is not a death. so those terms of near miss and near death don't compare.

Language always also get's it's meaning in context. A child plate isn't made of children, though a glass plate is made of glass. It's all about context. A near miss is a miss occurring near, that's what it says, that's not giving it a different meaning.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[kwbMitel]

@Olaf

My intent on starting this discussion was not to say that a near miss was wrong but to share how for me it describes something that is self contidictory.

A thing that, once noticed, never goes away

I have found that I've always been able to substitute an alternate term which for me removes a distasteful expression

An exact analogy (for me) is the use of the term "needless to say...".

"Suffice it to say..." is much better in my opinion and avoids the self contradiction.

With near miss, it is possible to misunderstand. Not likely, I grant you, but possible.

Needless to say...

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Hello kwbMitel,

thank you, that's nice of you to say.

I see your intent. It nevertheless strikes me, how this term "near miss" can be seen so distasteful, while I see it perfectly describing the situation. Well, at least good. You may only describe it perfect with longer terms. For the sake of shortness of eg a head line "near miss" is a really good term in my understanding.

Maybe it's because I'm german, though we have the same double meaning of "nah", also and especially in regard of "Nahtoderfahrung" (

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahtoderfahrung

->

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience).

I don't see how you can take this wrong, in the end it's a matter of taste, as one of the meanings of near as an adjective is "Close in time, space, position, or degree".

'Asteroid passes Earth close' would perhaps be better.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[kwbMitel]

I used close approach in my original post

No one has yet noticed or commented on the substitution

Yes, this is personal taste, a pet peeve that I don't expect others to share but I wondered how others think none the less

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[ChrisHirst]

As Douglas Adams has it on learning to fly:

The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
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