Precipitate
Jan. 10th, 2007 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackLook at the word precipitate.
I agree with all the other definitions, but as a transitive verb I most often heard it as precipitating a chain of events, with connotations of doing so accidentally. This could share with the listed meaning a result out of proportion to the cause, but my remembrance would have the cause small and the chain long, whereas the dictionary just has anything that causes a disastrous result.
Am I totally imagining my meaning? I cannot recall -- where might I have recieved that impression? Simply from that particular phrasing?
I wanted to use it in the context of describing an apology. If I hold a party here when someone is living abroad then I say "sorry you'll miss out", meaning, of the three branches of apology (a) regretting, (b) without culpability but (c) that I did in fact cause their missing out, even though unavoidably. I would have described case (c) as precipitating, but that now seems wrong. What should I say?
I agree with all the other definitions, but as a transitive verb I most often heard it as precipitating a chain of events, with connotations of doing so accidentally. This could share with the listed meaning a result out of proportion to the cause, but my remembrance would have the cause small and the chain long, whereas the dictionary just has anything that causes a disastrous result.
Am I totally imagining my meaning? I cannot recall -- where might I have recieved that impression? Simply from that particular phrasing?
I wanted to use it in the context of describing an apology. If I hold a party here when someone is living abroad then I say "sorry you'll miss out", meaning, of the three branches of apology (a) regretting, (b) without culpability but (c) that I did in fact cause their missing out, even though unavoidably. I would have described case (c) as precipitating, but that now seems wrong. What should I say?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 04:45 pm (UTC)"I'm terribly sorry. Where should I send the compensatory chocolate?"
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Date: 2007-01-11 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 06:22 pm (UTC)But I think your usage sounds logical. I would have thought the not-culpableness or unavoidability of it was conveyed by context rather than the word though - am I reading you right in that you want 'precipitate' to convey the not-culpable or unavoidable bit?
In Latin, 'praecipitare' has the notion of rolling AoT, in a way, so I suppose 'snowball effect' would be the right sort of sense. I suppose I can conceive that the English verb might just mean 'cause' without the implication of some sort of chain of events...
Brain: *explodes*
(See what you've done? ;) )
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Date: 2007-01-11 04:19 pm (UTC)But I think your usage sounds logical. I would have thought the not-culpableness or unavoidability of it was conveyed by context rather than the word though - am I reading you right in that you want 'precipitate' to convey the not-culpable or unavoidable bit?
Preparatory to the question I aired a distinction I've thought about before, about apology. I mean that "sorry" and other related words can convey *any* of the three: regret, culpability, precipitation. (Though if regret is absent it's a bit empty. A "true" apology is when you're culpable and regret. You can only be culpable if you actually did precipitate/cause.)
I want 'precipitate' to cover when you did in some way cause it, but weren't deliberate nor reckless. (Ooh, maybe culpability should distinguish between when you were careless and when you were malicious as well!)
"Rolling" sounds good to me. And I'm pleased you seem to agree. But I'm confused, I don't think either me nor the dictionary are saying it *just* means "cause". Though I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Which of us did you mean to agree with if any? :)