Talk:Electrocution

Death and injury

• "...approximately 20% of reported electrocution injuries are fatal." Emergency Care: A Textbook for Paramedics, ISBN 0702025860.
• "Electrocution injuries are 5% of admissions to major burns centers." Catastrophic Perioperative Complications and Management, ISBN 331996125X.
• "Indirect electrocution from lightning often causes severe burns but is not necessarily fatal." Agricultural Medicine: A Practical Guide, ISBN 0387301054.
• "Because electrocution injuries cause massive musclespasms, you should also suspect a spinal injury." Professional Rescuer CPR, ISBN 0763743321.
• "In total, there were over 47,000 children killed or injured by electrocution." Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey, ISBN 9280638556.
• "General damages award of $150,000 for hunter who suffered electrocution injury was not excessive, where hunter testified that he was left with no feeling except pressure in his feet and with shooting pain around his knees..." West's Southern Reporter.
• "Electrocution injuries may appear trivial on cursory exam..." Common Hand Problems in Primary Care, ISBN 1560532092.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spinningspark (talk • contribs) 16:39, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Not injury! Electrocution and electrocuted means death from an electrical current entering a body. We are allowing people to use the word incorrectly. It does not have two meanings. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 08:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

So you say, but we follow reliable sources on Wikipedia. There are plenty of sources that include injury in electrocution. Where are your dources saying it is only death? SpinningSpark 08:46, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

The etymology of the word is a contraction of electro-execution. So if we only allow the original meaning of words then only death by electric chair would be allowed. But meanings of words change constantly with usage. If we adopted original meanings only as a principle then battery (crime) would be moved to battery, awful would be a redirect to awe and alcohol would be a redirect to mascara! SpinningSpark 09:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

After some light research half the dictionaries agree and the other half disagreed. Another word that was a clear cut definition is now lost to a sloppy multi use meaning. Yay Jaygee17.7 (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I note that the OED, possibly the most respected English dictionary in the world, supports the "injury" definition and does not qualify that with "informal usage" or some such. SpinningSpark 09:10, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

However, Cambridge and others do not include injury. Like I said, half don't agree with you. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 09:19, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Remeber that the purpose of dictionaries is to report on word usage, not to prescribe word usage and will typically lag behind changing uses. In any case, dictionaries are not always the best sources for technical definitions of word usage. Electrocution is a medical condition and we should be looking in reliable medical sources where a more nuanced description can be found. I don't think a case can be made for exclusion here based on RS saying this is a misuse of terminology, I'm just not seeing that. It is possible though, that we could decide to limit the scope of our article to death only. But it would have to be made clear in the lead that this is an article scope only, not us asserting the correct usage of the word (that's not our business to do). SpinningSpark 10:51, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I have digested what you have written. It is not as clear cut as I had first thought.I was hoping to enjoy the simplicity of saying electric shock (injury) or electrocution/electrocuted (death) to describe an electrical incident or accident. The continued missuse (now accepted) has blurred the meaning which results in clarification being needed every time it is used. Kind of step backwards here. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 11:58, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Electrocution used to mean exclusively a fatal injury. Now it includes non-fatal injuries. Time marches on. Let it go. Constant314 (talk) 12:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Already accepted the useage and ended my objections. Thanks for you unnecessary comments to a discussion that was already finished. Muppet Jaygee17.7 (talk) 23:20, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you *SpinningSpark for taking the time to explain and justify the correct usage. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 00:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I am a lawyer and the LEGAL definition of electrocution is 'An electrocution means that a person has died as a result of an electricity.' it is often ignorantly and incorrectly used for injury by electric shock, please use the Legal Definition and not the incorrectly common usage https://electrocuted.com/blog/electrocution-vs-shock/. (Markylon (talk) 14:46, 17 December 2022‎ (UTC)) (Moved comments by @Markylon: to appropriate place on talk page)

Wikipedia documents common usage of the term "electrocute" and is not bound by legal definitions. Lawmakers are free to use the word as they wish, but they have no say on how the word is used by others. Constant314 talk) 15:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

@Markylon: We might be "ignorantly and incorrectly" using the word, but you have ignorantly and incorrectly failed to say in what statute that legal definition was established and in what jurisdiction. How do you know that it is defined that way in all jurisdictions. Laughably, on the site you used to back up your claim I found "Other lawyers turn to our team when they have an electrocution injury ..." and "Fighting for Families After Electrocution Injuries and Wrongful Death" (my bolding). Thanks for the plug of your law firm, but I won't be using them. SpinningSpark 18:29, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Useless page

Someone said in 2012 that this page should be merged into electrical injury (and partly into electric chair imho) and he's right because there is literally nothing is on this page that couldn't fit in either of those two articles. At BEST the page could be something like "List of electrocutions" but that seems rather dumb too. The only reason this page seems to exist is to be anal about the prescriptivist nonsense that NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T USE IT WHEN THE PERSON DIDN'T DIE!!! Oh come off it, it's popular usage and it's here to stay.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.165.250.227 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Was Andreas Cuneus injured?

The article implies that Andreas Cuneus was injured by the "extreme shock" he received in 1746. I cannot find evidence that the shock was "extreme" (rather than just unexpected), or that Andreas Cuneus (or Cunaeus), a Latinization of the Dutch name "Andreas van der Kun", was actually injured by the shock.  --Lambiam 11:31, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

This book claims he was rendered unconcious which is kind of injurous. The book says this was "the first recorded electric shock created by a man-made contrivance." However this book (page 52) says that Cuneus' shock was predated by one von Kleist accidentally gave to himself. SpinningSpark 12:26, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

But since electric machines had been around for all of the 18th century (albeit less powerful ones), it is unlikely that he was the first either. SpinningSpark 12:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)