Wrong Word: Dire // Floating Tub of Lardass Adrift in Gulf of Mexico

This from yahoo.com: Passengers Text About Dire Conditions on Cruise Ship

Wow, sounds bad. 'Dire' would seem to indicate a life-threatening or dangerous condition. From dictionary.com:  "causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible"

Except conditions aren't 'dire' at all. They're merely uncomfortable.  The first line of the news article says:

Passengers on the fire-damaged Carnival cruise ship stranded in the Gulf of Mexico have reported worsening conditions including scarce running water, no air conditioning and long lines for food. 

I picture the typical cruise passenger as a bloated, sunburned midwesterner, splitting his time between naps and regular visits to the buffet. The article does little to dispel this stereotype.

'Scarce running water' means no showers. Still plenty of water for drinking. No A/C is a bummer in the sub-tropics, but it's far from 'terrible'. Long lines for food? The horror! So there's food, but a line. No one is actually going hungry. Also, the waste system isn't working very well in the absence of electricity so it's a stinky, shitty mess in the lower decks. Which does sound miserable, if not exactly 'involving great fear'.

For the definitive word on big cruise ships, we refer to the late, great David Foster Wallace. The Wikipedia description of "Shipping Out" (aka "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again") says, "[Wallace] explains how the indulgences of the cruise turn him into a spoiled brat, leading to overwhelming internal despair." That sentence alone goes a long way towards explaining the tone of the yahoo article. Dire, indeed.