It's No Tragedy that 'Tragedy' Is Overused

The ambushes of police officers in Baton Rouge and Dallas were still breaking news when my Twitter feed began filling up with fury as people lambasted the media for referring to what had happened as “a tragedy.” The same thing happened after the horror in Nice. And after the slaughter in Orlando. The impact of the word “tragedy,” we are told, has been dulled by overuse. It is too small to encompass our loss. Better, says the Twittersphere, to say “attack” or “murder.”

The implication of the criticisms is that the word “tragedy” should be reserved for terrible events that involve no malevolence. A bridge falling is a tragedy. A tsunami is a tragedy. A sudden death from natural causes is a tragedy. But this argument has the definition backward.