An "Infernal" Machine?

On Monday, a US Marine was arrested for carrying a gun, ammunition, and bomb-making materials on a commercial flight from Las Vegas to Boston. I read about the incident in Tuesday's Las Vegas Review-Journal. TSA employees in Boston discovered the banned items during the Marine's layover; apparently the Marine's bag was mistakenly unloaded in Boston and had to be re-screened so that it could be returned to the aircraft for the last leg of the Marine's trip. Good job, Boston TSA. The question now is "How did this stuff get by the Las Vegas TSA?" I was curious, and not just because I live in, and travel from, Las Vegas. I read on.

The article said the Marine was charged with possession of a concealed weapon and "possession of an infernal machine." I did a double take to make sure I read the words correctly. An infernal machine? Isn't "infernal" simply an adjective used to associate something with hell or damnation? A word you use in a moment of frustration to convey your negative feelings about a person or object? (I'm fairly certain I've heard the word used in the same sentence as the word "lawyers"). Surely someone can't be arrested for owning something "infernal."


There was no dictionary close by so I reached for my laptop. Dictionary.com indicated that "infernal" means hellish, fiendish, or diabolical. OK, so nothing new there: infernal really does just means hellish and bad. So how is it that one could be arrested, in this day and age, for possessing a "hellish" or "diabolical" machine? I mean really, my curling iron could qualify for that title on some days.


I walked in the next room to consult a dog-eared paperback American Heritage Dictionary which I think accompanied me to college, meaning that it is not very up-to-date. It provided no further illumination. Just the same "relating to hell" et al. Thus, I'm still left with the worrisome premise that you could be arrested for possessing something that another finds hellish or diabolical. That's a highly-subective standard that even a non-attorney like me can see is unworkable. Surely after 9/11 and the Shoe-bomber we would have learned how to write our laws so they can be enforced if someone tries to carry bombs on to an airplane.

I sighed, realizing that I would have to walk all the way downstairs to get our super-duper dictionary: a leather-bound 1,500 page volume of Websters Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary with gold-edged pages and my husband's name embossed on the cover. (My husband received the book as a gift for speaking at some accounting conference years ago but hasn't used it 1/100th as much as I have). I thumbed through the pages, landing on page 619 where I found the entry for "infernal," including the now expected hellish and diabolical references, followed by {drum roll please} an entry for "infernal machine." For the record, an infernal machine is "a machine or apparatus maliciously designed to explode and destroy life or property." Thus, I learned an "infernal" machine is quite different than an "infernal machine." Mystery solved.

I finished reading the paper with a sense of relief, satisfied that I didn't need to worry about the vocabulary skills of our lawmakers just yet. I brushed away any doubts about the adequacy of my own vocabulary with a pledge to sign up for Dictionary.com's word-of-the-day email. And best of all, I wouldn't have to worry about getting arrested for possession of an infernal curling iron the next time I travel on a bad hair day.