4 ms·

Off-topic, but I am always wondering why (English and lot of other languages) Wikipedia don't include "accident" or similar word in the title for these articles

Off-topic, but I am always wondering why (English and lot of other languages) Wikipedia don't include "accident" or similar word in the title for these articles. On the contrary, Japanese and Chinese versions do have it (and sounds more natural as a native speaker).

dan1234 6y ago
(In the U.K. at least) Accident seems to have fallen out of favour as calling something an accident would suggest there’s no blame, which is not normally the case (definitely not in the case). As an example, car crashes are now referred to as RTIs (road traffic incident), where they were RTAs when I was young.
- donaltroddyn 6y ago
  Interesting. In Ireland, they're referred to as RTCs (collisions), although still referred to as accidents in law. Never come across RTI before.
- agurk 6y ago
  I've never understood this logic as typical usage of the word accident means something wasn't _deliberately_ caused, not that no-one was at fault. I'm sure you could find some collisions that were caused deliberately (insurance fraud for example) but I'd be surprised they occurred so frequently to be worth changing the word.
- kqr 6y ago
  Interesting. My favourite safety expert, Nancy Leveson, uses "incident" to refer to conditions that could easily lead to accident. E.g. driving on the wrong side of a road is an incident. Doing it and colliding with someone is an accident.
howlgarnish 6y ago
The boring answer is that because the WikiProject Aviation style guide says so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation/Aviation_accident_task_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation... But this also avoids pointless wrangling over whether each accident should be called an accident, incident, disaster, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. FWIW, the Japanese/Chinese 事件 literally translates as "incident", which can be controversial in itself. For example, the Nanking Massacre is typically called the "Nanking Incident" (南京事件) in Japanese.
- theBobBob 6y ago
  I think Ireland is champion of euphemistically naming things to greatly play them down. We referred to WW2 (you know that little conflict that killed like 70 million people) as "The Emergency" while we still call the conflict in Northern Ireland as "The Troubles".
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    I read Flann O’Brien’s “An Béal Bocht” once. In it, Irish people have more suffering or less suffering, but never none, not even after death. I know it was satire and an exaggeration, but those stereotypes usually stem from a kernel of truth.
  - donaltroddyn 6y ago
    And the famine was the big hunger (an Gorta Mór).
- fireattack 6y ago
  The Japanese/Chinese versions for this particular article use "事故", not "事件".
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > For example, the Nanking Massacre is typically called the "Nanking Incident" (南京事件) in Japanese. This appears to have undergone some sort of renaming in English too. What happened to "the Rape of Nanking"?
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > But this also avoids pointless wrangling over whether each accident should be called an accident, incident, disaster, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. Growing movement in the automobile world: > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com > When it comes to describing the behaviour of the drivers on our roads, we have a language problem. When you are speeding and hit something, you didn’t have an accident, you caused a collision. When you blow off a stop sign and T-bone someone else, you didn’t have an accident, you caused a crash. When you get behind the wheel drunk and drive into a tree, you did not have an accident; you got drunk and drove into a tree. * https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-car-accident https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/why-theres-no-such-thing-a... * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/24/when-a-car-crash-isnt-an-accident-and-why-the-difference-matters/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/24/when-...
mjevans 6y ago
Incident, Disaster, or "Near Miss" (incident seems most fitting for this case).
- rzzzt 6y ago
  Obligatory George Carlin skit mentioning "Near Miss": https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
chrisseaton 6y ago
Calling it an 'accident' is an opinion, and this is supposed to be a factual article, not a given writer's opinions.
- fireattack 6y ago
  The problem is "British Airways Flight 5390" doesn't hint it at all (not without using Wikipedia frequently at least) that there is anything wrong with such flight. It sounds like "Boeing 707".
p_l 6y ago
It's extra interesting because accident is part of "aviation vocabulary" with specified technical meaning, and officially it was an accident (there are also incidents and serious incidents). You can see the official category in the tile of the investigation's report: "Report No: 1/1992. Report on the accident to BAC One-Eleven, G-BJRT, over Didcot, Oxfordshire on 10 June 1990"

dan1234 6y ago

(In the U.K. at least) Accident seems to have fallen out of favour as calling something an accident would suggest there’s no blame, which is not normally the case (definitely not in the case). As an example, car crashes are now referred to as RTIs (road traffic incident), where they were RTAs when I was young.

donaltroddyn 6y ago
Interesting. In Ireland, they're referred to as RTCs (collisions), although still referred to as accidents in law. Never come across RTI before.
agurk 6y ago
I've never understood this logic as typical usage of the word accident means something wasn't _deliberately_ caused, not that no-one was at fault. I'm sure you could find some collisions that were caused deliberately (insurance fraud for example) but I'd be surprised they occurred so frequently to be worth changing the word.
kqr 6y ago
Interesting. My favourite safety expert, Nancy Leveson, uses "incident" to refer to conditions that could easily lead to accident. E.g. driving on the wrong side of a road is an incident. Doing it and colliding with someone is an accident.

howlgarnish 6y ago

The boring answer is that because the WikiProject Aviation style guide says so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation/Aviation_accident_task_force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation... But this also avoids pointless wrangling over whether each accident should be called an accident, incident, disaster, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. FWIW, the Japanese/Chinese 事件 literally translates as "incident", which can be controversial in itself. For example, the Nanking Massacre is typically called the "Nanking Incident" (南京事件) in Japanese.

theBobBob 6y ago
I think Ireland is champion of euphemistically naming things to greatly play them down. We referred to WW2 (you know that little conflict that killed like 70 million people) as "The Emergency" while we still call the conflict in Northern Ireland as "The Troubles".
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  I read Flann O’Brien’s “An Béal Bocht” once. In it, Irish people have more suffering or less suffering, but never none, not even after death. I know it was satire and an exaggeration, but those stereotypes usually stem from a kernel of truth.
- donaltroddyn 6y ago
  And the famine was the big hunger (an Gorta Mór).
fireattack 6y ago
The Japanese/Chinese versions for this particular article use "事故", not "事件".
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> For example, the Nanking Massacre is typically called the "Nanking Incident" (南京事件) in Japanese. This appears to have undergone some sort of renaming in English too. What happened to "the Rape of Nanking"?
throw0101a 6y ago
> But this also avoids pointless wrangling over whether each accident should be called an accident, incident, disaster, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. Growing movement in the automobile world: > Before the labor movement, factory owners would say "it was an accident" when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions. > Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say "it was an accident" when they crashed their cars. > Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions. > Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. * https://crashnotaccident.com https://crashnotaccident.com > When it comes to describing the behaviour of the drivers on our roads, we have a language problem. When you are speeding and hit something, you didn’t have an accident, you caused a collision. When you blow off a stop sign and T-bone someone else, you didn’t have an accident, you caused a crash. When you get behind the wheel drunk and drive into a tree, you did not have an accident; you got drunk and drove into a tree. * https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-car-accident https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/why-theres-no-such-thing-a... * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/24/when-a-car-crash-isnt-an-accident-and-why-the-difference-matters/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/24/when-...

mjevans 6y ago

Incident, Disaster, or "Near Miss" (incident seems most fitting for this case).

rzzzt 6y ago
Obligatory George Carlin skit mentioning "Near Miss": https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM https://youtu.be/zDKdvTecYAM
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

chrisseaton 6y ago

Calling it an 'accident' is an opinion, and this is supposed to be a factual article, not a given writer's opinions.

fireattack 6y ago
The problem is "British Airways Flight 5390" doesn't hint it at all (not without using Wikipedia frequently at least) that there is anything wrong with such flight. It sounds like "Boeing 707".

p_l 6y ago

It's extra interesting because accident is part of "aviation vocabulary" with specified technical meaning, and officially it was an accident (there are also incidents and serious incidents). You can see the official category in the tile of the investigation's report: "Report No: 1/1992. Report on the accident to BAC One-Eleven, G-BJRT, over Didcot, Oxfordshire on 10 June 1990"