Charter Member of the Sub-Media

January 05, 2005

Flood the Zone « Media Distortions »

Bunches of people who matter more than me are shocked that the CNN director used the word "flood" in relation to covering the aftermath of the tsunami.

Let me ask you: are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings really the same word?

For instance, is "bear - the animal" really the same word as "bear - to endure"?

I think you can make an argument that they are not. Mr. Klein was not thinking of "bunches of water covering what is normally land" when he used the word. By the very words he used, it is clear that the mental image he had that he was trying to convey was of a bunch of athletes overwhelming rivals by sending more people than the rival could match, in order to score a touchdown. That's what the term "flood the zone" means.

The mind is an interesting thing. People who haven't lived in the South for years often cannot remove the word "ya'll" from their vocabulary because it fills a conceptual gap in proper English language: 2nd person plural.

Some people are perhaps making a career out of being offended, I think.

Posted by Nathan at 06:22 AM | Comments (2)
Comments

I'd have to disagree. "Flood" has a number of meanings, not all having to do with water. I'd say that "flood the zone" derives from the second intransitive verb definition listed at dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=flood): To pour forth; overflow.

I suspect that this definition arose when someone was trying to describe some action that resembled a flood in terms of "covering" every part of an area.

Posted by: wheels at January 6, 2005 10:32 PM

Um, I don't want to sound to flippant or dismissive, but:
No. It's a sports term.
"Zone coverage" was developed in basketball and baseball as an easier way to cover receivers and shifty guards who could juke a defender out of his shoes. The defender covered his area, or zone. So offenses reacted by putting more guys in a zone than the person responsible for the zone could cover. So defenses would assign 1-2 extra guys to help out if their zone was empty. So offenses would put more guys in the zone than the defense could cover. If the defense put everyone in the zone, then it was too easy to break someone free on a 'back door' move.
The term for putting lots of guys in one zone is called "flooding the zone".
I thought that was common knowledge. But then, I'm a big-time football fan.

Posted by: Nathan at January 6, 2005 10:52 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?