Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Rogue wave

Readers of the The Straits Times were introduced to a fairly new term today -- rogue wave.

Rogue wave kills S'porean off Perth, another missing
By Teh Joo Lin
Oct 04, 2006

A MASSIVE rogue wave turned a weekend fishing trip off Perth by four Singaporean buddies into a tragedy, leaving one man dead, another missing and two injured.

It's a rather unusual way to describe a wave, which is lifeless. One tends to associate rogue with a person -- such as 'rogue trader' or dishonest trader.

Shouldn't the wave be described as 'freak wave' or 'raging wave' instead of 'rogue wave'? A wave can't be dishonest.

Oh well, I'm not a language expert. But I feel sorry for the person who was killed by the big wave.

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