Back in June 1969, the cement industry safety committee, under the aegis of the Portland Cement Association, kept its injury statistics and ran its safety contest by using the ANSI Method of Recording and Measuring Work Injury Experience (ANSI Z16.1-1967). The members of the safety committee consistently used the prescribed descriptive phrase disabling injury. In all my years of working in the cement industry, I only ever heard senior managers use the expression lost-time accident, not even lost-time injury. Most of the time this usage didn't make any practical difference. An exception came when a miner lost the tip of a finger and got back to the plant the same day. The standard called for a time charge even though the miner missed no day from work in the physical plant. Senior managers seemed incapable of seeing the difference between lost-time accident and disabling injury. Words do make a difference. Take the exchange in the Dilbert cartoon: "Avoid saying 'unfortunately,' say instead 'as it turns out'" (Sept. 16, 2011).
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