Just to keep this group alive...
Yet again I hear on the wireless that a victim of violence is - and has been for several days - in a 'critical but stable condition'. To my ear, these are almost antonyms, a view borne out I think by dictionaries. How do you understand it?

Noel

Critical = "life-threatening"
stable = "getting neither worse nor better"
Someone whose life is threatened can have their condition worsening or improving, while at the same time still remaining life-threatening. Consider someone whose heart is beating irregularly... it can either stop completely (getting worse) or beat more regularly but still be dangerous (getting better). Stable implies there's no change in the condition, even though that condition remains serious.
Theo

Wikipedia has an article on this subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical state
Medical states or medical conditions are used to describe a patient's condition in a hospital. These terms are most commonly used by the news media and are rarely used by doctors in their daily business, preferring to deal with medical problems in greater detail.
There are separate sections for USA practice and UK practice.

UK practice
The release of patient information to the press is strictly controlled in the National Health Service (NHS). The Department of Health (DH) publishes a Code of Practice for guidance to NHS Trusts.(3)
..
Each NHS Trust has its own guidance for statements to the press. The DH Code of Practice has no official definitions of the standard phrases in use. However, most NHS Trusts will specify some(4) or all(5) of the following phrases in their guidance;

* Deceased
* Critical
* Critical but stable
* Stable
* Satisfactory
* Comfortable
* Progressing well
* Discharged
USA practice
A frequently cited condition is "stable". Typically, stable is not a condition on its own; it is usually qualified with a true condition. It is commonly used to denote conditions where a patient has a favorable prognosis or stable vital signs. The American Hospital Association has advised doctors to not use the word "stable" either as a condition or in conjunction with another condition, especially one that is critical, because a critical condition inherently implies unpredictability and the instability of vital signs.(1) Despite this, "critical but stable" conditions are frequently reported, ...
The use of such conditions in the U.S. media has increased since the passing of the HIPAA in 1996. Patient privacy has become more of a concern to doctors and hospitals, and they are less likely to release specific medical conditions, fearing litigious patient

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in uk.culture.language.english)

I sympathise with your point but I also sympathise with the authorities. They need to have words and phrases that communicate the desired general concepts to the general public. These words and phrases need not be pedant-proof.
At least they aren't using a colour code for the conditions.

Let's see what I can invent:
Black: Deceased
Double Red: Critical
Red: Critical but stable
Double Amber: Stable
Amber: Satisfactory
Green-Amber: Comfortable
Green: Progressing well
White: Discharged

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in uk.culture.language.english)

In a slightly different context, I cringe every time I hear schools inspectors and the like, going on to the effect that for a school to be "satisfactory" isn't good enough. Do they ever stop to think what the word actually means?

Mike Barnes