Can't people loot respectfully? I mean, if you're going to steal stuff, you're going to steal stuff, but do you also need to destroy the store? I'm thinking these looters were rioters

https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/buffalo-cops-arrest-8-for-looting-during-deadly-storm/
Buffalo cops arrest 8 suspected looters during deadly ‘blizzard of the century’

 

https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/buffalo-cops-arrest-8-for-looting-during-deadly-storm/
Buffalo cops arrest 8 suspected looters during deadly ‘blizzard of the century’

This headline prompted me to continue my little campaign of making a distinction between looters and rioters. My opinion is that the media is intentionally using that word to downplay the actions of these criminals.

The definition of "looter" that I have understood since before I can remember, is that it is simply someone who is equal parts thief and opportunist. Someone who steals, usually not alone, when opportunity presents itself.

A clerk has to run to the restroom and leaves the store untended for a few minutes, meanwhile a group of teenagers run off with several cases of beer. They are looters.

An armored delivery crashes on the highway and a horde of people get out of their cars and start grabbing up all the cash. Looters.

A trucker sleeps at a truck stop while a gang of ruffians breaks into the back and steals cargo. Looters.

People who seek as their primary goal to destroy what others have built, and employ theft only as one among several other methods including crashing, burning, killing, soiling, ransacking, etc. are not the same as looters.

My plan was to post here the definition of looter beside the definition of rioter, and let it speak for itself. But that won't be possible because either I've had a mistaken understanding of the world "looter" my entire life, or someone(s) changed the definition on me. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this wouldn't be the first time the collective has agreed to change definitions of words to match the way most (or the most outspoken) people choose to use them. This time there is a bit of evidence of it though:




What was wrong with the definitions of looters, looting, and loot, that multiple authorities on word definition needed to simultaneously update their entries in the past week after hundreds of years of consistent use?

 

This headline prompted me to continue my little campaign of making a distinction between looters and rioters. My opinion is that the media is intentionally using that word to downplay the actions of these criminals.

The definition of "looter" that I have understood since before I can remember, is that it is simply someone who is equal parts thief and opportunist. Someone who steals, usually not alone, when opportunity presents itself.

A clerk has to run to the restroom and leaves the store untended for a few minutes, meanwhile a group of teenagers run off with several cases of beer. They are looters.

An armored delivery crashes on the highway and a horde of people get out of their cars and start grabbing up all the cash. Looters.

A trucker sleeps at a truck stop while a gang of ruffians breaks into the back and steals cargo. Looters.

People who seek as their primary goal to destroy what others have built, and employ theft only as one among several other methods including crashing, burning, killing, soiling, ransacking, etc. are not the same as looters.

My plan was to post here the definition of looter beside the definition of rioter, and let it speak for itself. But that won't be possible because either I've had a mistaken understanding of the world "looter" my entire life, or someone(s) changed the definition on me. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this wouldn't be the first time the collective has agreed to change definitions of words to match the way most (or the most outspoken) people choose to use them. This time there is a bit of evidence of it though:

View attachment 284074
View attachment 284075

What was wrong with the definitions of looters, looting, and loot, that multiple authorities on word definition needed to simultaneously update their entries in the past week after hundreds of years of consistent use?

Ha! Have you seen what they did to the definition of "woman"?

 

My guess is that those dates do not mean that THAT definition was updated then, merely that SOMETHING in the database containing that definition was last updated then.

Those definitions match very closely with what I've always understood the meaning to be.

Here's the definition from a hardbound Funk & Wagnalls dictionary from 1982.

Loot: v.t. (1) To plunder, as a conquered city; pillage. (2) To carry off as plunder. (3) To engage in plundering. There are a couple of other definitions as nouns which simply refer to the things looted.

Plunder: v.t. (1) To rob of goods or property by open violence, as in war; pillage; loot.

I looked at another dictionary I have, Webster's New World Dictionary (1979), and it is similar saying that it is to take goods or property by force.

 

My guess is that those dates do not mean that THAT definition was updated then, merely that SOMETHING in the database containing that definition was last updated then.

Those definitions match very closely with what I've always understood the meaning to be.

Here's the definition from a hardbound Funk & Wagnalls dictionary from 1982.

Loot: v.t. (1) To plunder, as a conquered city; pillage. (2) To carry off as plunder. (3) To engage in plundering. There are a couple of other definitions as nouns which simply refer to the things looted.

Plunder: v.t. (1) To rob of goods or property by open violence, as in war; pillage; loot.

I looked at another dictionary I have, Webster's New World Dictionary (1979), and it is similar saying that it is to take goods or property by force.

Ok that seems more or less consistent with the online definition, it seems I was mistaken about that word, and that I got a little carried away. Both these sources also have date changes for the word "horse" and I can't think of any social pressure to redefine that word.




But oddly enough it would seem Merriam Webster's definition of "woman" hasn't been updated since time began.




And with that I will withdraw from this little sidebar conversation about definitions before the topic of weather turns into one that gets threads closed.

 

Ok that seems more or less consistent with the online definition, it seems I was mistaken about that word, and that I got a little carried away. Both these sources also have date changes for the word "horse" and I can't think of any social pressure to redefine that word.

View attachment 284083
View attachment 284084

But oddly enough it would seem Merriam Webster's definition of "woman" hasn't been updated since time began.

View attachment 284085


And with that I will withdraw from this little sidebar conversation about definitions before the topic of weather turns into one that gets threads closed.

No, no, you're missing the point. @joeyd999 is talking about a news network that claims, over and over and over again and again and again, that the other half of the country has somehow changed the definition of the word "woman". He didn't mean an actual dictionary definition and things that actually happened, he is just repeating what a "news" network (or a host on a news network told him.

 

One last Blizzard loot story.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1607451816761122817

 

No, no, you're missing the point. @joeyd999 is talking about a news network that claims, over and over and over again and again and again, that the other half of the country has somehow changed the definition of the word "woman". He didn't mean an actual dictionary definition and things that actually happened, he is just repeating what a "news" network (or a host on a news network told him.

He does things like that quite often. Like when he claims to own the company he WORKS for, it's owned by someone named Cornel O....

 

One last Blizzard loot story.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1607451816761122817

Oh, how cute! You see, these looters are really just big children at heart, and "boys will be boys" - what can you do?

 

One last Blizzard loot story.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1607451816761122817

He was the owner. He was moving it to his house until the crime spree was over.