THRASHED or TRASHED?

 













Spence:  When the Occupiers in Eureka squatted in the vacant house in Eureka, they reportedly "thrashed" the house and left it in an awful mess.  Or, did they "trash" the house.  I guess it depends on which word you choose. Either way, both words are being used incorrectly.  Webster's states Thrashed as "flailing or beating something, to swing or strike as with a stick.”The prison guard thrashed the inmate about the shoulders with his night stick.  Whereas Trashed only has one definition; slang for getting drunk. As in, "Dude, I was so trashed last night".  Of course these terms are only two of countless misused words and phrases that have made their way into the Humboldt lexicon.   

 
Kate: I have to disagree.  TRASHED is correct, and THRASHED is a word that was once misused and then inexplicably caught on in popular west coast language. I had never heard the word "thrashed" used for that definition until I moved back to the west coast.  The first few times I heard it I thought I had misunderstood what people were saying, I only knew the word "thrash" as a farming activity.  I use the word "trashed"...as in "they trashed the house."   I'm pretty sure you can find a source for anything you want to prove.  While some may discount dictionary.com, I'm going to use it for my argument:

 "Trash" verb (used with object)

Slang  to destroy, damage, or vandalize, as in anger or protest: The slovenly renters had trashed the house. 

Although Webster's does have for TRASH:

Examples of TRASH

1. a computer program that trashes useless files
2. The vacuum cleaner couldn't be fixed, so I trashed it.
3. The apartment had been trashed.
4. He says that the government's policies are trashing the environment.

Dictionary.com has no such definition for "thrashed," slang or otherwise.  Although it does say "to defeat soundly" which I didn't know (as in one team thrashed another).