Literary Legs

The Women's 100m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Never Happened, As Far As You Know

Doctor Emmett Brown would be proud.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has gone back to the future. 

The IOC, that bastion of ethical behavior, has decided to strip Marion Jones of her gold medal in the 100m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics for doping violations.  Fine.  I have no problem with that. We would assume, then, that silver medalist would now be awarded the gold.

Not so fast.

The problem is that the silver medalist was Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who was accused of dodging drug-testers in Athens and faking a motorcycle crash as a cover-up.  Yes, that's right: in Athens.  That was four years after Sydney, at the 2004 Olympic games.

So, to recap: Thanou never tested positive at the 2000 Sydney games (the games in which she received the silver), was not linked to doping allegations there, was not stripped of her silver medal there, but is being punished for admittedly shady behavior that happened four years later?  And she was already punished once for her behavior in Athens, since the IOC decided to ban her from the 2008 Beijing games.  With this recent action, the IOC is punishing her not just retroactively, but prospectively: her punishment is being handed down in 2009 for an infraction she committed in 2000, using her behavior in 2004 as evidence. 

Ah, but the IOC, with its history of corruption, is all-powerful. Says spokesman Mark Adams, "The IOC feels we have a strong moral and a good legal case for that," spokesman Mark Adams said. "We are not legally bound to give medals. This is a case of taking no action. We have decided not to give her [Thanou] an honor that we don't think she deserves."

Adams's words are pretty interesting.  Even though Thanou's alleged drug use at the Athens games four years later is not exactly news, at the time--the 2000 Olympics--she did in fact deserve the medal.  Four years later, maybe not, but you can't punish her prospectively in 2000 for an event that occurred independently in 2004 (especially since she was punished in 2008 for the 2004 offense). 

More here.

The Surprisingly Brief History of "To Overdose"

The Washington Post is currently covering a story here in metro DC about a five month old baby who ingested heroin (and survived).  What struck me as odd was that most of the headlines about the case and the accompanying text say that the baby "overdosed" on heroin.  Since to overdose means "to take too large a dose of something," this got me wondering: is there really any acceptable level of heroin use for a five month old that would not be considered an overdose?  The Post's use of the verb would seem to imply that.  

Then I thought a little more and went to my favorite online resource, the Oxford English Dictionary. And what I found was quite surprising: that for most of its life--since around 1700--to overdose was a transitive verb meaning to "give too large a dose to."  In other words, it required an object, and it was not restricted to medicine.  The OED cites, for example, a 1977 Washington Post article cautioning readers that "Iceberg lettuce salad cannot be saved by overdosing it with garlic and oregano" and a journal that mentions "a diabetic patient who has been overdosed with insulin."

The first entry of to overdose as an intransitive verb--one not requiring an object--is only from 1973, surprisingly. It's from a Robert Ludlum book where he writes, "The doctor told me that he'd prescribe heavier ‘medication’ but warned me not to overdose." As we can see, the old definition, as an intransitive verb referring to any substance, has been largely replaced by its current use as transitive verb referring most often to taking too large a dose of medicine or some other pharmaceutical substance. 

Why such a change?  Look at the date: 1973.  This was the early 1970s, a time when illegal drug use was becoming mainstream as more and more people started experimenting with marijuana, LSD, and other mind-altering substances.  And as the popularity of these drugs increased, it would follow that people began to ingest far too much.  Thus, to overdose took on a new meaning as people looked for a word to describe such as action. 

 

CNN Says That President Obama Eats His Children With His Popcorn

From CNN's Political Ticker last week, discussing President Obama's attendance at the George Washington-Oregon State basketball game (Obama's brother-in-law is the Oregon State coach):

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, the First Lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.

What would you do to correct this?

Listen, we all know what the author is saying, and no one believes that Obama ate Sasha and Malia.  But when we see a sentence like that, we start thinking less about the message and more about its impression upon us (in this case, we laugh) and how it looks.

Full text here (thanks to the ADS-L listserv for this gem)

Update: after about three weeks, the sentence has been corrected on CNN's blog:

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, joined by the first lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.