![93 years ago, seven murders in Chicago were called a 'massacre', now it's called a Saturday [1200x950 - 150KB]](https://pic8.co/sh/YeZG6K.jpg){kind=link}
Like most English words, "massacre" has more than one definition. The meaning used to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wasn't the number, it was that they were all killed by the same people at the same time after having been lined up against a wall. To massacre somebody is to kill them when they are helpless, such as shooting an unarmed person who isn't posing an immediate threat to anybody. Massacre can also mean 'wholesale slaughter.'
what if a bunch of gangsters shoot one single boy in his car, can that be a massacre?
I propose that the current victims of homicide in Chicago, by number and by description as bystanders, meet the definition of wholesale slaughter. As such, they are newsworthy and deserving to be called victims of massacre.
That they are not so described implies that the distinction is more than academic disagreement on usage; e.g. I believe the term 'mutual combatants' was created to promote this falsehood.
(post is archived)