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Chris -- 2018-04-11
My missus sent me her word for the day, which was “Pyrrhic victory”. Came as a shock to me as I’d been hearing it as “Empiric Victory” all my life. Though now I come to think of it it doesn’t make a lot of sense, as it gives it an entirely different meaning. (An observable victory?) A google comparison shows only about 80 or so postings for Empiric, as opposed to 349,000 for the proper spelling. So that’s me told.
Apparently the show Boston Legal has used the term Empiric Victory though. The comments on the below blog show one user criticising the writers for it, but another user defending the writers and defining empiric victory against pyrrhic victory.
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A wonderful find!
I also wanted to post the the discussion forum exchange deadmanjones referred to. A poster named Pat (no relation) wrote this:
I just watched an episode where the characters refered to “an empiric victory”... what the heck is that? I think they meant a “pyrrhic victory”... The fact that this got through the writing stage, and then that none of the actors picked it up proves to me that liberals are idiots.
A couple of hours later, poster Dave responded with the comment that “empiric victory” is a legal term in its own right:
An “empiric victory” in the legal sense is one where the remedy satisfies the law but not the expectations of the plaintiff… Alan didn’t win an empiric victory (he still lost) but the plaintiff’s victory was empiric insofar as no jail time was ordered (as might have been hoped for by the IRS) and the fine, however small satisfied the decree of law.
In context, this could be considered a “positive outcome” (read: victory) for Alan and his client.
On the other hand a “pyrrhic victory” is one where the loss to the victor is so great as to detract significantly from the feat of winning. Not relevant in the context of this episode.
Least we cast criticism into the wind… ;)
Dave sounds confident and assured, but some quick Googling didn’t turn up any evidence that writers on legal blogs – or anywhere else – are regularly referring to “empiric victories.” Fabrication or at least a suggestible memory? That’s my suspicion, but – as Dave said – I don’t want to cast criticism into the wind. Anyone familiar with this?
“Empirical victory” also gets 145 Google hits. Some of the writers clearly intended that, but others meant “Pyrrhic victory.” And I’m not sure what a few others thought “empirical victory” meant – there’s at least one more meaning out there.
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