Is “Victim” the Right Word?

shlomi on November 16, 2019

Words have power and meaning. Cancer patients after their treatment are “survivors.” So are those sexually assaulted. It implies strength. Victimhood implies disempowerment, helplessness, and weakness.

I suggest we consider replacing “victim” with “aggrieved.” Someone that a criminal has wronged. Someone with a grievance. Someone, as “grieve” also implies, has suffered.They have a grievance against the aggressor, with the protest and anger that that might imply.

This isn’t going to change crime statistics, nor reduce the suffering of those assaulted, burgled, mugged, or scammed. But it changes that person, in description, as someone not weak or disempowered, but as someone against whom a wrong has been done that must be righted.

 

A new word: Augre

shlomi on May 9, 2013

To use one of wikipedia’s favorite words, this is a portmanteau of “augmented” and “reality.” With Google’s Google Glass finally becoming a human-portable heads-up display (something done by IBM in the late 90s with their portable computing initiative), we need a name instead of a phrase to describe “google glassing.” I’m sure the lawyers at Google gnash their teeth over the use of googling in the same way we xerox things and buy kleenex at the store.

augre Hear this aug·re [auhg-ree] verb, augred, augring, augres

  1. the act or power of viewing one’s environment with the aid of technology providing additional information related to objects
  2. To discern information gathered by scanning an area with augmented reality vision.
  3. the act of visually looking about in order to glean additional, computer-generated information about one’s surroundings.

synonyms
computer vision, machine vision

Examples:

“Joan augred the ballroom, then headed towards the bobbing icon above her waiting friend.”

“I can’t augre any wifi around here.”

“I can’t augre that guy over there; he’s wearing viewcamo.”

“Go left at the next intersection, my augre’s reporting patterns of infrared activity there over the past week.”