Neglected to death by the steam
Interesting way of trying to sum up the charges, but -- no. People can be beaten, shot or stabbed to death, but I'm not at all sure they can be ignored to death.
posted by fev at 10:29 AM
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Interesting way of trying to sum up the charges, but -- no. People can be beaten, shot or stabbed to death, but I'm not at all sure they can be ignored to death.Previous Posts
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6 Comments:
But "neglect" is deeper than "ignore", isn't it? At any rate, I'm not sure I'd say this, but it doesn't bother me in a headline.
how about "fatally neglected"
"lost a long battle with neglect"?
well maybe not in the hed...
The story sounds as if he let mom starve to death, so how about "Son let mom -- starve as he -- spent her checks" that count might not work, but at least it's not wordicide.
Yeah, I think that's getting at what I was concerned about. All the "[verb] to death" cases I could think of involve doing something. I'm glitching on the idea that you can verb someone to death by _not_ doing something.
"Lost a long battle with neglect" would be a really interesting case of hed writing, wouldn't it?
It's not doing something you should be doing, though, not just not doing something. That's why it's not called "criminal ignoring"... I mean, I do see your point, but I see the headline writer's point, too. Son killed mom. How to say it is the problem.
Perhaps
'Woman, 73, killed by son's neglect.'
'Woman, 73, died from son's neglect'
but is it also possible that 'neglected to death' is direct quotation?
-thomas
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