These are not the most important aspects of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But it shows how using the right words and being conscious of style can help avoid confusion.
Technically, a firearm cartridge consists of (1) a casing that holds gunpowder and a primer for igniting the gunpowder, and (2) a bullet, which is a projectile attached to the end of the casing. Therefore, although the bullet is part of the cartridge, it is not the same thing. Now, parts of speech called synecdoshes are formed by using a part to represent a whole (or sometimes a whole to represent a part), such as “boots on the ground” to talk about soldiers on the ground. People, especially those who aren’t familiar with firearms, may repeat the synecdoche by saying the whole “bullet” is “bullet,” as Mr. Jourdan does in his prose without realizing it. Or just confused. Even dictionaries often don’t make it clear. When using this style of illustration, it is important to understand that the boot does not march automatically, and the cartridge case does not leave the gun through the barrel at (or near) the speed of sound. , you need to make sure your readers understand it too. Bullets do.
A Wall Street Journal article signed by three journalists (“Police raid New York hostel in pursuit of UnitedHealth gunman,” December 5, 2024) states that Thompson’s killer: states.
He used a sharpie to leave an encrypted message about the bullet that came out of the gun when it jammed. [law-enforcement] the official said.
This sentence is an example of taking synedosh literally. There isn’t much space in a 9mm (diameter) lead bullet, so how could the murderer write on the bullet? If the killer was able to accomplish this difficult task, how could he have been able to do so after a deformed or fragmented bullet, perhaps embedded in some object, was fired (“came out of the gun”) and recovered? Has the message been deciphered? Or did the killer write more realistically on the cartridge? Just yesterday, the paper repeated the confusing statement but left the obstructive part (“Person of Interest in the Killing of United Healthcare Executive in Custody in Pennsylvania,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2024, Eastern) (Updated at 12:31pm).
The journalists were talking about the cartridges, not the bullets. The cartridge is ejected from the ejection port in the pistol slide after each shot (probably even one cartridge, which is part of the entire magazine, would have been ejected from the magazine well when a jam occurred) and cleared. Ta). Police would have found all of this on the ground where the gunman was firing. Of course, the source of the confusion could be law enforcement, but these people usually witness the pistol in action. It is not impossible that law enforcement officials felt the need to silence journalists when they should have pushed back and asked clarifying questions.
The original article, published in the Financial Times, was less ambiguous (“New York police investigate markings on ammunition used to kill insurance executive”, December 5, 2024).
New York detectives are investigating the inscriptions “denial,” “defense,” and “release” on the shell casings left at the murder scene, according to a person familiar with the case.
The FT at least made a distinction between a cartridge case and a “bullet,” even if it used a confusing compound word that made it seem like the cartridge was part of the bullet rather than part of the cartridge. If the cartridge case is literally part of the bullet, then the bullet is part of the bullet.
Some may say that all this is not a big deal. But using the correct words and avoiding confusion doesn’t have to be this difficult. By the way, yesterday’s Financial Times article said that the suspect’s handgun was a homemade (“ghost”) gun, which would explain why he committed the sabotage (“U.S. Police , ‘Person of Interest’ Detained in Murder of UnitedHealth Executive,” December 9, 2024). Top commercial semi-automatic guns do jam, but not often.
In some cases, apparent use of synecdoche may be dangerous and have more serious consequences. Saying “the United States” (or “France” or any other country name) “did this or thinks so” to refer to the U.S. government is as if you were confusing the bullet (the government) with the whole cartridge (the country). I will do it. The government was the same as the country. In political discourse and social analysis, synecdoche is perhaps even more dangerous than metaphor or hyperbole. It can hide confusion and propaganda.
*******************************************
A cartridge consists of a cartridge (and its internal parts) and a bullet
