Take a look at the wiki entry for the Westminster Bridge terrorist incident and see they have a certain number killed (6 including the perp) but they did not all die on the day of the incident. Some were put on life support. I'm just getting fed up at people telling me what killed means and what I should think it means, as if some people are more qualified than others to understand definitions. Killed means causing the death of someone by other than natural causes. Died means when life expires.
I don't want you to feel like anyone's putting down your theories & I should've made that much clearer in my other post. The English language can be a really slippery beast - words don't even need to be ambiguous to make things confusing. I've messed my head up completely by repeating something as simple as the word "the" too many times - & I had a distinction average at uni, it's not like I was barely literate. So PLEASE (& this goes for everyone) don't feel like anything said is intended as a snide remark or a put down.
My own life view is that no matter how old you get, every day remains a learning experience. Some days it might be a word definition or pronunciation, some days it might be something seriously embarrassing (like finding out in your 40s that Alaska isn't where you thought it was :blush: ). Sometimes you'll enter a conversation thinking you're going to impart knowledge, but you'll leave as a receiver of knowledge instead. You just don't know which it will be & that's one of the things I really enjoy about forums - you never know when the giver/receiver role will suddenly flip.
So ... I'm genuinely trying to understand the usage of "killed" that some are seeing - it did begin to seem ambiguous to me at one point, & I momentarily started to come around to your view, so don't feel that I'm closed to the idea.
I just feel like I'm really missing something in the wiki example? I've read the whole thing at least 5 times but I can only find the kind of examples that people were using to show that the word would NOT be used that way?
It literally uses the same language as several of the examples that have been given in this thread to explain that you can't be killed on one day, but die on another. Plus, I can't find
anywhere in this wiki that it states all of the deceased victims were killed on 22 March 2017.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Westminster_attack
ie. the wiki specifically says "on 22 March, 2017 ... an attack took place
injuring more than 50 people, 4 of them fatally".
The wiki has more than one example of people who were injured by KM, the attacker & then died at a later time. It does not describe any of those victims as having been "killed"
during the incident on 22 March 2017.
In relation to the victims who died after the incident it
always uses language like "fatally wounded", " "sustained severe injuries", "later died" "died as the result of"
eg -
"Having been knocked unconscious and
sustained severe injuries from the fall, she was later rescued by the crew of a river cruise and brought aboard a London Fire Brigade boat. She
later died in hospital from her injuries."
"Six people, including the attacker,
died as a result of the incident, and around 50 others were injured"
"The fourth victim ...
later died in hospital after his life support was switched off."
"fell into the Thames during the attack; she died in hospital as a result of her
injuries on 6 April after her life support was withdrawn.
It
does say they were
killed by KM. That statement will also be true of the Delphi killer, because no matter
when a victim dies, if they die as the result of injuries inflicted
by a person or thing, then that person or thing is correctly described as having killed them.
However, "killed" is never used to describe
when a victim died unless they die
during the initial incident - & as far as I can see the wiki example supports this contention because nowhere does it claim they were all killed then & there on the bridge, on 22 March.
So as far as I can see, even your own example demonstrates that "killed" can always be used for the "who" or "what" & the "how", but it cannot always be used for the "when"
But I could've missed something that would change my mind, or I've got the wrong wiki?
(Also, I just want to add that conversations like these ones make me feel SO BAD for kids from non-English speaking backgrounds who have to contend with high school & university course work in English
)
