Dumbing down the meaning of “calm”

Again.

372 French cars torched over “calm” New Year
Tue Jan 1, 6:51 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - Vandals torched 372 cars as France celebrated the New Year, down on the figure last year after a night the police described as “relatively calm.”

Cars are burned fairly regularly in France and the image of vehicles in flames in poor suburbs became symbolic of riots in 2005 when angry youths set fire to thousands of cars.

…

“The night was relatively calm, without notable incident, there were very few direct clashes with the security forces,” said a spokesman for the national police.

At 12:00 a.m. EST, the Interior Ministry said 372 vehicles had been burned — 144 in the Paris region and 228 in the rest of France. That was down from 397 last New Year’s Eve.

…

Well, woot! woot! - 25 fewer cars go under the torch! Pat yourselves on the back, lads.

Ignoring for a moment that if my car were burnt, I’d have trouble thinking of the event as anything other than a notable incident, I’m numb enough to the vagaries of stupid people that the story, and its characterizations, don’t shock all that much. The world has become accustomed to this uniquely French method of communication, though it hardly seems as though it was done in the language of love.

Here’s the part that made me chuckle, while reminding me of Reuters’ predilection for “scare quotes”: the way Reuters classifies the story, as inferred from the actual link (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL01382497) makes clear that they don’t buy the gendarmes’ characterization that this was no big deal.

If such a thing happened in the US, it would be a big deal, and would represent an actual crisis of some degree. Sadly for the French, events like this are neither a big deal nor treated as any sort of crisis. All of which heightens the absurdity of the sometimes-seen French pretense to superiority, it would seem.

And, oh, yeah, only tangentially related - Happy New Year, all.