I work for a company that has changed its terminology to near hit. Their argument being that the incident of note 'nearly hit' but did in fact miss. And thus it didn't nearly miss as this would be a hit. However, the term they are using is not nearly hit, it is near hit. Make sense?
I feel that the answer to this question is in the building of the sentence and the parts of the speech. Miss being the verb and describing what actually happened, it did miss, and 'near' therfore, describing the verb in the sense that it was close, however, still a miss. I feel that in this case you can use the term 'it nearly hit' but not 'that was a near hit'.
I was looking for your opinions, and hopefully a definitive answer.
A more eloquently put explanation would also be greatly appreciated.
Preamble:
The background to this is that the idiom, ‘a near-miss’, originated in WWII. Sailors coined the term to describe a bomb that exploded close enough to the hull to cause damage.
The use of ‘near-miss’ rather than ‘near-hit’ makes sense in terms of their perspective when engaging the enemy. Their perspective is aiming to hit the enemy ship or plane, but wanting all of the enemy’s shells, torpedoes and bombs ‘to miss by a mile’. It is bad enough for them when the cry goes out, “We’ve been hit!” But to describe every such bomb etc. in terms of how close they all come to HITTING them would undermine morale! Rather, if they HAVEN'T suffered a direct hit, they would prefer to refer to it as ‘a near-miss’.
Over the decades, the term has been corrupted, so that you may see it without the hyphen; and its use has spread, so that near mid-air collisions are also termed ‘a near-miss’.
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Note that I wrote “a near-miss’.
You write: ‘miss’ being the verb and describing what actually happened, it did miss, and 'near' therefore, describing the verb in the sense that it was close,
You continue: “however, still a miss”. Note the Indefinite Article - 'miss' is being used as a noun.
The term ‘(a) near-miss’ is also a noun. (True, when we describe it as an action, we use a verb; but the term itself is a noun.) Similarly, '(a) near-hit' is also a noun.
We use the nouns ‘miss’ and ‘hit’ frequently in other contexts:
“The song / film was a hit.”
Invited to go with a group to have a drink after work, someone might say:
“I’m feeling tired. I’ll give it a miss tonight.”
Thus, the answer that you seek lies less in ‘grammatical considerations’ and more in understanding your company’s perspective.
You don’t mention what the “incident” was, but I suspect you are referring to some hacker almost breaching your computer systems’ security measures – the Firewall. The company’s perspective is the direct opposite of that of the sailors. The company is vigilant, to prevent any hacker breaching their Firewall. Their focus is on how close any hacker came to a HIT on their computer. So, when a hacker gets close to breaching their security measures, it is ‘a near-hit’, calling for measures to prevent this in the future.
I did a quick Internet search, and found these:
“In 2006, hackers in China broke into the State Department’s computer system in Washington and overseas… The bureau that deals with China and North Korea was hit particularly hard…”
“Over 1,000 European and US energy firms hit by Russian 'Energetic Bear' virus that let hackers take control of power plants.”
“B.C. PharmaNet hit by hacker, 1,600 accounts breached.”
“Hackers hit companies like Nasdaq, 7-Eleven for $300 million, prosecutors say.”
The sailors coined the word 'near-miss' as the term to describe their situation: yes, 'a miss' - but exploding near enough that it caused damage to the ship.
Your company has adapted the term to suit their situation: not a 'hit' - but nearly so. So much near to a breach in fact that we must take immediate action to shore up our Firewall.
Thanks, what a brilliant answer. The company use the term generically, in the context of near-miss/hit accident reporting. I read that a lot of companies are doing this; as physiologically, people are more likely to report a near-hit than a near-miss. However, I did feel that it wasn't correct use of English.
