It necessarily follows
January 08th, 2013 by Vader
“An empty oil tanker struck a tower of the San Francisco Bay Bridge on Monday but did not appear to spill any oil into the bay, the U.S. Coast Guard and California state officials said.”
Key word here: “Empty.”
It’s wonderful that our country can find gainful employment for the illiterate, the innumerate, and the feebleminded.
It’s regrettable that it employs them in critical occupations like journalism.
Comments (1)
Filed under: Deseret Review,There are monkeyboys in the compound | Tags: derp, it necessarily follows, journalism
Filed under: Deseret Review,There are monkeyboys in the compound | Tags: derp, it necessarily follows, journalism
January 08th, 2013 09:26:57
Bookslinger
January 8, 2013
Ahem. The tanker may have been empty of cargo oil (usually crude oil, but tankers also transport various forms of refined oils), but it still would have had its own -fuel- oil. The fuel oil (called “bunker”, if it’s a steam powered ocean-going ship, might be diesel for a diesel-electric smaller ship) that tankers carry for their own propulsion is usually carried in a forward tank, near the bow (the “pointy end” for you land-lubbers). Hence, the oil that would likely be spilled in a head-on collision is the ship’s own fuel oil, not the cargo oil.
Chalk it up to the many meanings of the word “oil”. But yes, an “empty” tanker could still spill plenty of bunker oil. So it was still appropriate to specify that there was no spill of -any- oil.