Re: "Kill" vs. "cause to die" (was: "Transferral" verb form...)

John Cowan writes:
 > Tim May scripsit:
 >
 > > Well, this may be the way these words are used in court, and in legal
 > > documents, but I think you would be able to say you killed them in
 > > non-formal speech.  After all, you can say Stalin killed millions,
 >
 > Stalin's out of the case: he intended those deaths, even if he didn't
 > do them with his own hand.  Indeed, that heightens his guilt, for he
 > had not even the bad excuse of superior orders.

He intended to kill people, but not necessarily every specific person
who died.  In any case, I wasn't sure exactly what it was about the
shouter that you considered to make the word "kill" inapplicable -
intention or directness of causation, which is why I offered those two
examples.

 >
 > > and you can say that a driver
 > > killed a pedestrian in an accident, even though it wasn't deliberate.
 >
 > Deliberate, no, but the driver is still an agent.  The shouter isn't
 > an agent in the avalanche, and that's why "kill" is mal apropos.
 > I think that's the fundamental point: the subject of "kill" has to be
 > an agent, not merely a cause.  ("Pollution killed many fish today"
 > is not really a counterexample, because it is personification.)
 >

Perhaps it's just a matter of my own ignorance, but how exactly do you
define an agent in this case?

 > > It might be considered misleading, but not technically inaccurate.
 >
 > I think the opposite: technically inaccurate, but perhaps understandable.
 > In grief the shouter might say "I killed those people!" but I think he
 > would be contradicted.

I think we have slightly different understandings of the verb "to
kill", then.  I'd console the shouter that the deaths were accidental
and could not have been predicted, but if pressed I couldn't deny that
he killed them. (Or I might repeat this discussion, which probably
rules me out for the position of grief-counsellor.)

FWIW, the New Oxford seems to agree with me -

!kill |>verb [with obj.] 1 cause the death of (a person, animal, or
!other living thing).

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