When I talk about tyhings like terminology or academic matters I don't get upset about them. In a case like this one, when I look at it from a personal point of view, it's nothing about the word and everything about the people who say: "I couldn't successfully kill myself." It's being upset about their pain. It's being angry at people who think that that is such a trivial thing it should be ignored. That that kind of pain should be ignored simply because it isn't personally relevant. It's anger at people who don't care enough to be sensitive about their talking to other people and so, contribute to the darkness they're already drowning in. That kind of self absorption and callousness really *really* pisses me off. I think that's an entirely worthy thing to be upset about, if one even needs to begin to have to validate what they feel based on someone else's metric (which is also a thing that adds to the darkness of people-being told that your feelings have to be valid to someone else to matter. Don't do that anymore.)
What are they initiating? They are initiating-starting-to kill themselves. That is obvious by the statement "to initiate suicide" and the fact that suicide is the act of killing oneself. My apologies, I thought it was obvious.
I have already stated up thread that I am not including physician assisted suicide because that is a whole other set of circumstances, with a variety of it's own specific complications.
And, also as stated upthread: give me one example of common or popular use of having completed something that wasn't seen as getting something unpleasant over and done with. Again upthread: we don't complete a vacation-we come home. We don't complete a book-we finish it. We don't complete a meal-also, we finish it. We complete a task, an assignment a *something unpleasant we want over and done*. That is is the use of complete. Thus, seeing suicide as a way to "complete" a life means that life is one of those unpleasant things we want over and done with. Which is accurate only if we're talking to someone who died from suicide. The dead person doesn't care.
The survivors however, hear it and can sympathize and become the dead people. That's the problem. Sure it's accurate for the dead victim, but once they're dead, using the accurate term for them does nothing for them and does negative things for those who aren't dead and we can do something about. We should not be telling those who aren't dead that life is unpleasant, or even implying it. Instead we should be implying that suicide is something you do, indeed commit and commit to-there isn't much more committed than dying for it.
And lastly: if you wanted any kind of respect for your use of language you lost it when you used merriam webster as a vocabulary reference. Noone who specializes in vocabulary, written communication or etymology would be caught dead with one of those even at the bottom of their closet-unless it's emergency toilet paper.
