Grammar Moses: If a rampage is an incident, what's a holocaust?

Last week at least 19 people were killed and 26 were injured at a facility for people with disabilities near Tokyo. Authorities say the assailant was a man with a knife who had worked at the facility until earlier this year.

Evidence suggests he believed disabled people should be euthanized.

There are many words you might use to describe such a horrific ... thing. "Massacre," "slaughter" and "rampage" are three I think work well.

One thing it decidedly was not, and that is an "incident."

I've worked for John Lampinen for 32 years, if you count a summer internship that to him probably felt like five years in itself. At least once a year I'd hear him declare that an "incident" should never describe something serious.

He brought to my attention the following:

CNN in its web story on the stabbing spree referred to it as an "incident" four times.

That word certainly diminishes the severity of the act and is pretty unimaginative writing to boot.

Webster's New World Dictionary of American English defines "incident" as a happening or occurrence, a minor event or conflict.

The Oxford English Dictionary, the standard-bearer of the King's English, evokes the same benign qualities in one definition but also provides for "a violent event, such as an assault or skirmish."

If you're a member of the tea and crumpet crowd, feel free to call a bloody rampage an "incident."

On this side of the Atlantic, though, an "incident" is no great shakes. The Daily Herald's spellchecker program even flags "incident" and says, basically, "Do you REALLY want to use this word?"

Think of it this way: If something is incidental, does it matter much? Of course not.

If you're packing for your trip, you include shirts, shoes, socks, undies and "incidentals." They're so inconsequential you don't even bother delineating them.

You lovers of novels of the Old West might invoke Walter Van Tilburg Clark's 1940 novel, "The Ox-Bow Incident," in which two drifters are roped into participating in a lynch mob.

With apologies to Walter, I would not call that an incident. But then he probably didn't want to give too much away in the title.

Next egg?

Two weeks ago I wrote about an email solicitation that included a reference to "pullet surprises."

I received another email a few days ago that sang the praises of annuities. The subject line read: "Growing your next egg is good. Getting tax deferred growth is better."

I'm beginning to think chickens are writing these emails.

If you're still scratching your heads, it should have read "nest" egg.

If you're a marketing person, find yourself a proofreader. Sloppiness sucks the credibility out of your message.

Religiosity

Last week I wrote about why it's a "history museum" and not a "historical museum," just as it's a "chemistry" class and not a "chemical" class.

On Friday I received an email from someone who says he is a Maryland bishop and wants me to publish a two-part treatise on Christianity in peril.

He admonished me to "LET YOUR RELIGIOUS EDITOR/REPORTER TAKE A LOOK AT IT."

Perhaps he did want me to have a religious person look at it, preferably someone who follows his particular set of beliefs.

But I suspect what he really meant was: Let your religion editor/reporter take a look at it."

This is another case in which a noun (religion) is used as an adjective to describe "editor" or "reporter."

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line.