• Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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    13 days ago

    with temperatures that get so hot, they can literally pulverize a person’s bones.

    is this a regional use of the word “pulverize” I’m not familiar with? Never heard it used when referring to incineration style damage.

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      Perhaps the author knows “pulverize” means “reduce to dust/small pieces” but not that it implies blunt force trauma and not something like being burned to ash. Maybe they asked a chatbot for a word meaning to reduce to small pieces or something? I can’t imagine it would be AI generated directly or through an edit pass, since if anything that kind of generation would be more likely to keep the word with the sort of context its usually in without incorrectly matching part of its meaning, although maybe the context being a car crash made a chatbot short out and go “car crash -> impact -> pulverise” in an inappropriate clause.