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this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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You mean shocked.
If you got electrocuted, you'd be dead.
I only learned this very recently! I guess it makes sense, it's like electro-execution
Exactly!
I mean, if you look in dictionaries, you'll see both definitions, but as I said to another user in this thread, dictionaries include a definition because it is common, not because it is accurate. Just look up the term "literal"; most common dictionaries define it as meaning either "literal" or "figurative".
Words exist fundamentally to communicate something; if a term is defined so as to be ambiguous, it has failed in that purpose.
Look up the definition. It's changed to include severe injury from electricity.
Prescriptivism vs descriptivism.
The technical definition is as I described above.
It's only been expanded in common dictionaries because the dictionaries practice descriptivism, i.e. they reflect not what is the best definition, but how it's most often used.
In other words, just because it's in the dictionary doesn't mean the word means that in a technical context; it just means that's how it's commonly meant when used in everyday parlance.