Can one call an object 'dirty' if it was stained by blood? [closed]
Solution 1:
Hypothetically, you can call something with blood on it dirty. However, dirty used to describe something bloody presents a few difficulties:
Dirty means a lot more than bloody. So calling something that is bloody "dirty" could lead people to believe that it has a lot of dirt or that it is otherwise unclean. Take these two examples. I find it difficult to parse whether the item is just bloody (and thus dirty) or whether the item is both bloody and dirty:
He fumbled open the woman's shirt, his hands trembling, and when he saw her dirty bandage soiled with blood and pus he became flustered (Bae Suah, "Sister Thief." Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture, vol. 11, 2018.)
Blood speckled his dirty linen shirt. (Brian McClellan, The Crimson Campaign, 2014.)
I found several examples in COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) like these. Dirty tends to represent something far more general than the residue left by blood.
Blood can also be dirty or clean. In the sense of being impure, blood can be called dirty:
What do you think of hearing Brian Wilson say about Landy, he transformed the chemistry within my blood from dirty to clean? ("Love and Mercy Brings the Life of Brian Wilson to the Big Screen." Fresh Air, 6/18/2015).
So you'd want to be careful that you weren't suggesting that the blood was dirty.
Liquids tend to stain, but sometimes can be dirty too. Another COCA search for dirty and stained shows that these adjectives are frequently used together. Sometimes, dirty substances might stain something else:
I worried that the upholstery would get stained from the dirty, salted layer of slush on the ground (Ottessa Moshfegh, "Dancing in the Moonlight." Paris Review, issue 214, 2015.)
Dirty water stained the cuffs of her slacks and the hem of her long coat. (Max Gladstone, Four Roads Cross, 2017.
Sometimes, it seems like something liquid or even abstract can leave something dirty, at least as it dries:
Kara looked up at me; dirty streaks stained her cheeks. (Michael Thomas, "Nightwatch." Fantasy & Science Fiction volume 92 issue 3, 1997.)
So calling something bloody dirty is going to be a peculiar use. It can be done, but English users usually prefer other terms for what you mean (like stained), and you'd want to be careful that dirty is not misunderstood.
Solution 2:
You could, but it would sound a bit weird.
Bloody would be just silly.
Blood-stained is perfectly acceptable and not at all bookish.
Stained is okay too, unless you wish, for whatever reason, to be precise.
Solution 3:
Emphatically, yes.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines dirty as unclean.
. dirty, adj. and adv. View full entry15.. ...Characterized by the presence of dirt; soiled with dirt; foul, unclean, sullied.... (emphasis added).
- dirty, v. View full entry1591 ...transitive. To make dirty or unclean; to defile or pollute with dirt; to soil. Also figurative (sometimes const. up)....
As an example sentence (I made this up, but your mother would undoubtedly agree):
Put it in with the dirty clothes, but soak it in cold water before you put in the washing machine.
The OED (link above) gives this example:
1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene ii. vi. sig. R7v All his armour sprinckled was with blood, And soyld with durtie gore.
The OED also points out that dirty can mean contaminated with radioactivity; no actual dirt has to be involved in this kind of dirty, although it may be. See also dirty bombs
English words usually have valid and widely used meanings beyond the literal.
Solution 4:
I assume that the question is asked because things are made dirty by dirt, and dirt is typically something worthless, while blood is normally something precious. However, whether the presence of X on Y makes Y dirty does not depend primarily on the intrinsic physical or chemical characteristics of X, but on whether the presence of X interferes with the purposes of Y and/or is condemned by the cultural conventions about what Y is supposed to look like. Blood on a wall makes the wall dirty, because walls are not supposed to have blood on them; there are cultural conventions that require that the blood be scrubbed off. Blood that is to be used for transfusion, on the other hand, does not make its container dirty, because it is supposed to be there. Similarly, whipped cream on a cake does not make the cake dirty, because it enhances the cake and makes it fulfill its purposes, but whipped cream on one's dress makes the dress dirty, because it does not help the dress fulfill its purposes.
So, yes, one can use dirty for a wall that has a blood stain. Whether dirty or bloodstained is preferable depends on the context. Bloodstained is obviously more informative than dirty, and if we are talking about a wall that is a part of a crime scene, then the additional information conveyed by bloodstained may be highly relevant. On the other hand, in an everyday context, in which we are only trying to communicate that the wall needs cleaning, that additional information may be distracting, and dirty may be perfectly OK.