“Expedition” Versus “Going Out”

I use the word “expedition” a lot, both here at Impossible Kisses and out there in real life. In fact tomorrow I’m mounting an expedition to the video store and the local Hobby Lobby.

I do have, however, actual criteria that I use to distinguish between an expedition and just getting out of my house. The criteria are personal, secret kinds of things, but I do have them.

Out there in the real world of cryptozoology where monsters invade barnyards at night and suck the blood out of goats there’s a certain amount of contention about the use of the word “expedition.” Some people seem to think that writers are tempted to go off on vacation and—to add production value to their subsequent blog posts—refer to their vacation automatically as an expedition even if it was, basically, a weekend get-away with friends.

Early this year Loren Coleman took Ben Radford to task over this issue, and Radford responded, discussing how he picked his words. The exchange took place over at Coleman’s blog, Cryptomundo. The give-and-take continues in the comments section at the very bottom of the post (that’s where Radford discusses “expedition”). Here’s the first paragraph and a link to the whole discussion:

What has become of Fortean Times? They have Ben Radford penning an article that is nothing more than what you might find on someone’s website about a short hike taken on a vacation with their dad and a friend. And guess what? That’s exactly what this so-called “expedition” was. A couple hikes in the rainforest, in habitat not associated with the traditional Chupacabras reports of Puerto Rico, and Radford writes an article. What has become of Fortean Times?

continued in, “Radford Takes A Hike”

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