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What is a near miss?


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2 hours ago, Pierre Sacha said:

 

Unless you are an air traffic controller or sitting in one of the aircraft involved.

 

:) well, i think you and Emvar both missed the subtle play there. 'Near miss', 'could care less', both misnomers, the latter has especially baffled me for a long time. 

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Actually "near miss" is not a misnomer. I wasn't in the Navy, I was in what the Navy calls the "lesser service", lol.

 

But, in Naval Gunnery, misses are classed for calling out as a gun fires to zero in on the target.

 

A Naval near miss is a splash right next to, or extremely close to, the ship that the gun is firing at.

 

It means "fire just a blond hair closer and you will hit her." It is called out when the shell hits the water and splashes up on the opposing ship.

 

There is another term that goes with it,,,,,,,it is called the "missed it by a wide margin."

 

But, "near miss" in all cases has come to mean "you missed it, but you were very near hitting it." In aviation that would mean you got so close to crashing into the other aircraft that both planes' occupants were sure they were dying.

 

Not trying to dampen the fun at all,,,,,,,,,,just pointing out that it is a real term, with an actual meaning.

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11 minutes ago, SandraH155 said:

As it was mentioned before Near miss means double negativity in speech. And I agree that the quality of our educational system has been let down these days. That is why to avoid such dumb mistakes and to look more professional I use the reliable college essays for true Canadians. And this helps.

 

And welcome aboard Sandra! :cheers: 

 

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Actually, Sandra, it is not "low quality speech."

 

It is simply that non-military persons use barely understood military terms when writing or speaking to a predominantly non-military audience.

 

"near miss" looks like an illiterate term or double negative,,,,,,,,,,but, I would have to ask,,,,,,,,how should the battleship spotters at Jutland have described a shell that almost hit the opposing battleship, but missed it? and keep in mind in "mil-speak", everyone needs to use the exact same terms for the exact same type of event or action,,,,,,,,,,and it has to be short and clear. That is the reason for the "word alphabet" also, and is also why "nine" is pronounced "niner" and many other things that don't seem correct to the general public.

 

Just saying "you missed it, you missed it, you missed it, you missed it again" is of absolutely no use when trying to "range in" on a target.

 

Remember, language evolves,,,,,,,,one example being that somewhere along the line a large number of people are now saying "it is different to......" instead of the long used "it is different from........"

Edited by Rex
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Haha, Bo,,,,,,,,that is the ending of the "give my Mother In Law twice as much as you give me" joke. You tell the Genie "now, scare me half to death,,,,twice"

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My students appreciate this one: Last December my students knew I would be gone a week out at Pearl Harbor, and they knew they'd be getting a substitute teacher for the week. So I told them:

"Okay, remember while I'm gone, I want you to give your guest teacher (substitute) TWICE as much respect as you give me. And, two times zero is....?"

"ZERO!" called out the most "gettin-it" kiddos :) 

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1.  "Close" only applies to horse shoes, hand grenades and H bombs

2.  The burst radius of a hand grenade is always 2 feet farther than you can run

3.   The fuse on a standard 5 second hand grenade fuse is actually 3 seconds

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