What is a "wasteful storm", as Bush called Katrina?

[DesEtoiles]

wasteful? wha?

[marbuc]

1. Because it didn't kill ALL the poor people? eom

because it scared his mother?

[NorthernSpy]

2. one that doesn't recycle?

One that leaves the water running while it brushes its teeth?

:think:

The Incoherent One strikes again!

[Lisa]

3. that's an archaic use of the word -- does his speechwriter need ...

... a new dictionary, perhaps?


From the Oxford English Dictionary:

1. That causes devastation, desolation, or ruin; that destroys or lays waste. a. of a person or animal, thing personified, personal action or attribute. ? Obs.

***that "obs" signifies that this definition is outdated***

a1300-1400 Cursor M. 18230 (Gött.) u prince of tinsel and u duke Of wastful werk, sir belzabuk. 1576 FLEMING tr. Caius' Dogs (1880) 32 What man..with more vehemency of voyce giveth warning eyther of a wastefull beaste, or of a spoiling theefe than this ? 1579 SPENSER Sheph. Cal. Jan. 2 When Winters wastful spight was almost spent. 1596 SHAKES. Hen. V, I. ii. 283 Wastefull vengeance. 1615 G. SANDYS Trav. IV. 218 England..defended by the Sea from wastfull incursions. 1667 MILTON P.L. x. 620 Yonder World, which I So fair and good created, and had still Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man Let in these wastful Furies. 1783 BURKE Sp. Fox's E. India Bill Wks. 1842 I. 282 The several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and Persians into India were, for the greater part, ferocious, bloody, and wasteful in the extreme. 1819 SCOTT Leg. Montrose xvii, He collected his scattered forces from the wasteful occupation in which they had been engaged.