On Mon, 2011-07-25 at 21:16 -0500, Max Wellhouse wrote:
> It's catastrophic to me when it leaves me stranded somewhere;     be
> it a burnt up ignition rotor or a hole in the block.  Having said
> that, I sense a definition of the word coming shortly......

Funny you should say that!

Unless one of us drives his van into a city's central natural gas
storage facility we're unlikely to have a Vanagon-related catastrophic
event, which is "a sudden and widespread disaster."

A hole in the block might be a sudden disaster, but would not be
widespread. Zombie infestations can be widespread, but are seldom
sudden.

But if a bunch of naked pictures of (say) Ozzie Osbourne were
unexpectedly released on the Internet, well, /that/ would be both a
sudden and widespread disaster.

I hope this clears things up.

Pedantically yours,

-- RJS