Weighty words: What is an occurrence? An event?

Although it is now a full decade ago, I think everyone still remembers, or is aware of, the attack by Islamist terrorists against the United States, when, out of four hijacked planes full of passengers, two were deliberately flown into the two towers of New York's World Trade Centre, reducing those buildings to piles of rubble, and killing almost 3,000 people ("September 11 Attacks", 2012).

After that attack, the meaning of the word event became a matter of great legal and financial importance, being the subject of court cases and intense discussion, with witnesses from various academic fields being called upon by lawyers to testify about the meaning of the related words event and occurrence.

The question that needed to be answered was:

• Were the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on September 9, 2001 one event or two? Was there one occurrence, or two?

What do you think? Please feel welcome to let us know which side you support in this multi-billion dollar question, which was definitely not a purely academic question for several large insurance companies and New York property owners. I am sure that we all use the words event and occurrence on a regular basis, and have been happily using them for years, but is that confident use also clear and well-founded? Can you give a definition that is solid and will allow the difficult question to be settled one way or the other? Was the attack on two towers one event, or two? $3.5 billion dollars depends on your answer.

If you do a little research, it's easy enough to discover what the US courts and Courts of Appeal finally decided, after 5 years of heated argument, but that doesn't mean the  courts made the right decision about the definition of the controversial words occurrence and event.

This real world example, like the essay questions you are currently working on, neatly demonstrates that words and their definitions matter a lot in every area of life, not just in academic fields. As well as the lawyers, the expert witnesses for both sides included professors of English, philosophers and other academics, all of whom are the sorts of people that the US Supreme Court regularly hears opinions from when it is considering a case. US Supreme Court decisions are commonly about what a word or phrase means, and if you are answering the question about Bush's election or abortion, you will probably want to learn a few important details of some famous cases decided by the US Supreme Court. The nine justices of the Court write excellent, but not easy, academic English, and I sometimes use their opinions as readings in higher classes.

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Reference

September 11 attacks. (2013, March 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:33, March 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=September_11_attacks&oldid=543513648