Are there human events that are not ‘historical’?

When was the most devastating injustice that humanity has ever perpetrated against human beings throughout history? When but in history itself? Consider, however, the headline “Delink wildlife, historical injustices” (on page 18 of the Daily Nation of May 10). Truly, to be able to elide the word “from”, the sub-editor needed a comma after the word “wildlife”.

Probably because of space constraints, the sub-editor replaced the word “from” with a comma after the word “wildlife”. By that action — quite common in newspaper practice all over the world — the sub-editor was warning the reader never to identify the two ideas. Good. Yet it raised one question.

If I cannot affirm that the two ideas are identical, why do I congratulate the sub-editor responsible for that headline? Note, moreover, that, in one construction, I have removed the word “from” from the verb to “delink from”, my purpose being to warn the student of English against identifying “historical injustices” with other injustices.

Yet it is a tall order. For, in truth, I know no other injustices than historical ones. One of the only injustices against which I would accuse the creator is that he (or she) also created cobras, anopheleses and crocodiles. I am aware, namely, only of those events which have taken place both in time and in place.

In other words, my knowledge of the world is mainly historical. Like yours, my knowledge is restricted to the inhabitants of places and times. But that raises the point that, in a certain language construction, you never merely “delink”. No, you “delink from”. Quite surely, however, there are occasions on which the word “from” can be left out in such a construction.

For, notwithstanding how insignificant the event is, it was “historical” because it took place both in time and in place. Thus — no matter how insignificant — every event whatsoever belongs to history. What to stress, however, is that, though all events are historical, not all events are also historic. I have made that point umpteen times in this column before.

Here, I have described the difference between the adjectives historical and historic. No matter how insignificant some may be, all events are historical because all take place both in time and in place. Yet the adjective historic also exists. However, an event is historic only if it is the first of its kind in all known history.

In other words, an event is historic only if it is the first of its kind throughout known history or if it makes history in some other way. But an event can also be historic if its consequences to humanity and its property are more devastating or more uplifting than those of any similar event known to the affected society.

My advice to English-language journalists, however, is that they avoid the adjective historic until they have completely mastered its special meaning. To reiterate it, to be historic is to take place either for the first time in all known history or to take place in a manner that affects humankind like never before in its short history.

By “specific”, I mean concerning a particular species — here homo sapiens, namely, the human species. To be merely historical, however, is to be quite ordinary. For it is simply to take place both in time and in place. For its part, however, to be historic is either to take place for the first time in all known history or to take place in a manner that affects the human society like never before.