Today's Buzzword: Organic

I have for a while noticed a linguistic trend regarding the word "organic." In olden times it meant anything related to life. Then, some time ago, it became a reference to responsibly or "naturally" farmed produce. Now it can be used to mean anything, and take on any form the user wishes. Such as:

"I try to come up with my ideas organically."

"Are those pants organic?"

"I love Matisse, his lines are so organic."

"I'm healing from the flu organically."

"The flaws in your writing are too organic to be easily remedied."

"It's an organic theory of history."

Organic has uses in such diverse realms as chemistry, biology, pathology, psychology, philosophy, law, architecture, fine arts, and history. More information about the 15 official uses of the word here.

It is my opinion that when the meaning of a word is completely dependent on the context in which it is used, it no longer has any meaning at all. And since I'm against the usage of words that have no meaning (unless I, myself, make it up and assign its meaning) I hereby announce my boycott of the word organic. I am a force to be reckoned with.

Jack has this to say about it:

"But you're white. What sort of food are you going to eat?"

Lola Does Crime

Photo by Urban Data.

Jack brought to my attention this morning the subject of urban crime, based on his regular hearing of gunshots late at night. As you may know, the city provides a "crime map" for those interested in learning about crime in our city. What they don't clearly state is that homicides do not appear on that map.

The SF Crime Blog has been keeping an eye on such trends since August 2007 and in November 2007 noticed a strange discrepancy. The official crime maps were no longer showing homicides. Visiting the aforementioned site, I found it was true. The crime map allows you to search for forcible rape, arson, vehicle theft, robbery, burglary, vandalism, aggravated assault, larceny, and drug offenses. But not homicide.

The SFPD website has this to say about it:

Why don’t Homicides appear correctly on CrimeMaps? A homicide may not appear correctly on the map because:

1. The incident was initially reported as an assault and the victim died some time later from the injuries.
2. The incident was reported as an arson, and the body was not found until a later time.
3. A body was found and the cause of death was not obvious to the officer making the incident report.

Jack has this to say about it:

That's, like, a full dodge.