Plain please

On ABC TV news tonight the man who ran down people with a bulldozer was described as having ‘commandeered’ the vehicle. Well, it’s not lexically wrong: Shorter Oxford gives as sense 2. ‘take arbitrary possession of’. But the far stronger and more common usage is that in which officialdom – the army, the police, an emergency crew- commandeer a vehicle; when the need, that is, for urgent action in the public interest temporarily overrides legal possession. Thus the ABC’s way of putting it leaves a faint impression that the man had formal authority.

Does this tiny point matter? Yes, if you care in general about precision. But much more because such things quickly invade usage. You will have often seen and heard that some poor sod was ‘executed’ or killed ‘execution-style’. Again, plain villainy is unduly dignified. The man in Israel stole the bulldozer, then used it to kill people.