Two explosions have been heard outside the British consulate in Third Avenue, New York, according to police.
Windows were shattered by the blasts which happened at about 08:35 BST. There are no reports of any injuries.
The New York bomb squad are now checking cars and dustbins in the area for any explosive devices.
“There was an explosion in front of the location. It was detonated in one of the cement flower boxes used as a barrier outside the building,” a police spokesman said.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are aware of the reports and we are investigating.”
I think greater harm is being done to the English language here than to some office building in Manhattan. “Devices Explode Near British Consulate in NYC,” reads the headline.
“Devices”? The article explains that the police referred to them at “two explosive devices.” Well, they’re bombs. Not devices. Some jargon-crazed technocrat at the police explosive labs calls them devices, and the bloody press rushes to emulate the destruction wrought on the way we speak.
Police said the devices had been altered to explode by the addition of black gunpowder.
“It was one of those things you light and then run,” a police spokesman told the UK’s Press Association.
That’s a bomb, and I think we should continue to call it a bomb. If the bomb squad needs a taxonomy for their accounting or training, they’re welcome to it. But I don’t see why I should be made to parse through two long, unclear words when one short and clear word will do.
Well, but they -are- devices, you know, man-made mechanism. Which explode when the fuse is lit.
It’s perfectly accurate terminology, you know, nothing wrong with it whatsover. In truth,
‘explosive device’ and ‘bomb’ are not even completely interchangeable. Not all explosive devices
are bombs. Take the mixed-nuts/exploding snake joke toy, for an example. That’s a man-made
device which explodes, and could not possibly be called a ‘bomb’. Furthermore, even within
the class of fuse-triggered incendiary explosive devices, not all of these are bombs. Indeed, the
policeman’s description of ‘an explosive device of the kind which you light and then run away’
could be equally well applied to the roman candle. It is a sheerest assumption that it was an
incendiary explosive device with significant destructive force.
Clearly, some right-thinking individual high in the chain of command has prohibited any of
his (or her) law enforcement organization members from using the crude term ‘bomb’ when
speaking to the unwashed masses of reporters.
In part, they do that because “device” is scarier and more sensational.
When that huge march happened in NYC during the Republican convention, some punks set a float on fire. Meanwhile on CNN the anchor was saying, “we just heard from New York that people have set fire to some kind of device.” Device?
If they tell you it was a toy grenade packed with gunpowder plus a fuse, you’re not going to rush to the TV to see if WWIII has started. So it is within the media’s best interest to be nuclear. I mean unclear.
I was in town last night and saw a lot of commuters reading their newspapers. All the front pages said “Terror Alert at NY Consulate” and “Bomb Drama sparks Terror Alert”…it was pretty funny/sad they way they were trying to inflate the event. Several of the headlines linked it to the elections as well.
One of my favorite – if “favorite” is the right word – examples of this kind of jargon comes from the recall of Kyocera cell phone batteries a while back. The recall was made because the batteries were literally exploding and causing injuries, but the recall notice said they were being recalled due to “rapid disassembly”!
From the recall notice:
Dear Kyocera Customer,
It has come to Kyocera Wireless Corp’s attention that an allotment of batteries to be used with the Kyocera 7135 Smartphone might contain a risk hazard. The batteries in question are easily identified by a product code ending in “-05”…
Of the 50,731 units shipped in the United States, Kyocera has received four (4) confirmed reports of rapid disassembly. Of these four (4) reports, one involved personal injury in the form of a second degree burn and two (2) reported incidents resulted in minor property damage…
Continued use of the phone with the “-05” battery could result in injury in the form of burns due to the battery’s rapid disassembly (which may appear as an explosion), or emission of excess heat.
So, rapid disassembly may appear as an explosion . . . Hoo boy.
Those weren’t bombs that exploded in New York.
Those were devices that suffered rapid disassembly.
