4 ms·
Here in Paris, the rail & subway company instead of "personal injury on a track level", use "people accident". I'd say that most of the lines in Paris are the
by baud147258 9y ago
Here in Paris, the rail & subway company instead of "personal injury on a track level", use "people accident". I'd say that most of the lines in Paris are the same.
- Tijdreiziger 9y agoIt's interesting how the euphemism used differs by country. The Dutch railway companies use "collision with a person".
- paublyrne 9y agoIn London it's "person on the track".
- baud147258 9y agoPerson on the tracks doesn't exactly imply there was an accident with the person. It just prevent the trains from moving.
- lorenzhs 9y agoIn part, euphemisms like "personal injury" are used to avoid encouraging copycat suicides. In 2009, a popular German footballer's suicide-by-train received a lot of media coverage. The number of railway suicides more than tripled in the following ~10 days and never declined back to the previous level. See the table in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienensuizid https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienensuizid and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide. These euphemisms might sound, well, overly euphemistic or irreverent, but if they help curb the number of railway suicides, then I find that hard to argue with.
- baud147258 9y agoI've heard about the copy-cat suicide (but not under this name), but I did not realise it might be the cause of the use of such euphemisms. Of course one can question the usefulness of the euphemisms, since everyone know what they mean.
- colanderman 9y agoBoston is even more vague – "medical emergency".