Talk:catastrophe

catastrophe
Sense #4: "A social change of an outstanding radical and rapid character, with highly magical explanations by victims and others"? Hekaheka 08:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: Added in this edit. DAVilla 14:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No defenders, deleted sense. Hekaheka 00:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

French catastrophe not as catastrophic as English
This is my opinion through colloquial use of the word. However this opinion can be backed up by pointing out that within the Wikitionary entry, "desastre" is listed as a synonym -- and within a yellow pages there is a heading called "Apres Desastre" -- and these are adverts for contractors' services to come and pump out your basement when it's flooded or remove the tree that collapsed into your garage after the thunderstorm. And these things are not, in the English sense, thought of as "catastrophes," whereas in French, they may be.

What do you think? --174.94.42.200 06:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC discussion: February 2008–December 2010
The sociology definition needs rewriting, I'm not entirely sure what its trying to say. Thryduulf 20:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It might just be tosh. We inherited it from the original version of Catastrophe, which is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe?oldid=4963215 and doesn't exactly fill me with confidence: the contributor didn't even spell the word correctly. However, it does clarify one thing that our entry doesn't, which is that this sense (if it exists) is just a more-precise definition that sociologists use for the same general sense. —Ruakh TALK 00:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Tosh. A layman's catastrophe without "magical explanations" wouldn't be a sociologist's catastrophe? DCDuring TALK 03:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Has since been dealt with. — Beobach 06:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)