"A tornado touched down and killed a man and his girlfriend."

[MindPilot]

I heard that on the newsbreak on my local AAR station yesterday. Why couldn't they say "...killed two people"? Why is it important to point out not only the relationship but also the hierarchy? They could've said "...a man and a woman" or even "...a woman and her boyfriend."

It just seemed odd to me to report it the way they did.

[GliderGuider]

1. It's insidious, eh?

But once you're sensitized to it, you'll be amazed how often it happens

[MorningGlow]

2. I think the weirder part of the story

was (in the AP newspaper story I read) "They took refuge in (the man's) mobile home."
:wtf:

Don't these people know tornadoes have a vendetta against mobile homes?!

On your point: I just got irked at our local newspaper (Rochester, NY, Democrat and Chronicle)--they're starting all these targeted Web sites. One of the first was RocMoms.com. They just launched another one: RocMen.com. Why are the men "men" and the women "moms"?! :grr:

[Deep13]

3. a corpse and his corpse-friend

Yep, it's odd.

[Katherine Brengle]

4. Yeah I got that feeling before I even opened the OP. She's a "woman" not just

some man's accessory.

Puke.

[MindPilot]

24. Indeed. As the significant human female in my life said when I told her

"they might as well have just said 'a tornado killed a man and rendered his property unfuckable'."

[MrModerate]

5. The information content of "a man and his girlfriend" . . .

Is higher than "two people" or "a man and a woman." As humans, relationships matter to us and the fact that it was a couple who were killed was probably considered by the news director to be more compelling than two unrelated people -- we can imagine them embracing in the last instants of their lives, for instance, an image not likely to be evoked by "two people."

Agreed, "a woman and her boyfriend" would have been an equivalent phrase.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. "A tornado touched down and killed a couple."

Same level of human interest information without reducing either to accessory status, and fewer words (headline writers worry about that sort of thing.)

[piedmont]

30. Just one nit-pick with that-- there's still less information, and the headline would seem vague, too

"A couple of what?" would be the question raised.

[Gormy Cuss]

32. Only to people who speak English as a second language.

I've seen many headlines refer to people as a couple, usually in the style of "Crash kills Savannah couple."

[AllegroRondo]

6. maybe they wanted us to know his wife was OK?

[qanda]

9. ...

:spray:

[Gormy Cuss]

11. ...

:wow:

:spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank:

[seabeyond]

12. lol. like another poster, before opening man and girlfriend struck me as odd

but then i went to.... must mean he had a wife on the side..

it is odd to say man and a girlfriend. places the two in different levels

[krispos42]

18. "A tornadotouched down and killed a husband and his girlfriend"

How's that? :evilgrin:

[tuckessee]

8. You've got too much time on your hands.

Take up a hobby.

[Elspeth]

13. No, it's not about too much time on someone's hands. It's about the pervasive devaluing of women

Every once in a while, you get sick and tired of it and point it out. Mostly, though, you're just on slow boil.

[Katherine Brengle]

34. Exactly - it seems unworthy of mention BECAUSE it is so pervasive -- we are

used to it (as a society).

It is a big deal, because one instance is just an example of a much broader problem.

[seabeyond]

16. or the person found it intersting and wanted to express.

and you feel too much of a need to dictate how others should be... maybe you ought to take up a hobby, unless your hobby is going around dictating to others what the should do.

[tuckessee]

19. What I said to the OP

is the same as what you said to me so I guess my response to you should be to repeat your comment.

[seabeyond]

27. of course. but then mine was tongue in cheek at the very recognition and knowledge

of exactly what i was doing. was going to add tit for tat. but then i am as bad as bushie boy with saying and didnt know if it was actually tit....

but my question is.... do you recognize the inappropriateness of telling others what they should be concerned/interested in or not? because the curious mind wants to know. wink

[Lance_Boyle]

21. concern trolling *is* a hobby. n/t

[MindPilot]

22. Thanks for pointing that out.

Perhaps I should get (another) job too? And maybe I'll become politically active. I might even start posting on a forum. Sheesh.

[happyslug]

10. Some of this is just habit

For example when I first started my present job over 18 year ago, they hired a new secretary at the Same time. She was told to redo all of the phone's names. The practice at that time (and to this day) is the Attorney's name are the initials, the secretary's are they first names (We are slow changing this, but it is a good way for new hires to different between attorneys and Secretaries). Anyway the New Secretary was told this and them preceded to put all the men's name by initials for all the men were attorneys, and then put all the women's name by first name. The problem was we had one female attorney at that time. She did NOT take offense, but we had fun about it for the new secretary had ties in with the local NAACP and woman's groups. The reason we had fun with it, we all realized it was HABIT not intention that cause the mix-up.

The same with this story, the man died in his home, as did his girlfriend. It was his home so that is reported, as was the relationship anyone else injured had with him. Habit more than intention, something good writers have to watch out for, and bad writers just do.

[Selatius]

14. They were having premarital sex, and God frowns on fornicators.

It was God's judgement. (I'm kidding)

[liberal N proud]

15. Killed two people would have been appropriate

But then it wouldn't have done the right wing thing and subjugated women to a lower class than men.

Either that or the local reporters were wanting to publicize the two were not married but were together and by mention of the trailer the locals would just know that they were cohabiting. Those dirty awful sinners.
:sarcasm:

[DS1]

17. God Drills Sodomites

might as well just say it how it is

[Jacobin]

20. If the article were reversed,

then I'D feel slighted and post about it.

[MindPilot]

25. For the record, the OP (me) is a man.

at least according to *my* girlfriend. :D

[seabeyond]

28. ahhhhhhhhh.

i love it. i assumed was a female but lucky girlfriend of yours at your perception.

[hedgehog]

23. I think the headline was meant to tie into the fact that they died

in his trailer. She was his guest there, more or less, which gives him the priority. If it had been their trailer, then the headline would probably said something like couple killed by tornado.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

26. The Context Is Standard And Harmless. You're Looking Into It Too Deeply.

With stories like this, the 'main character' so to speak is always the person who owned the property or was the most connected to the event. In this case, the man owned the home and his girlfriend was over, hence the headline. It is similar to when a female driver gets into a fatal car wreck, the headline might very well be "woman and her boyfriend killed in car wreck", since she was driving etc. This really is no more than that.

[zbdent]

29. Did he bleed to death, and she

choked to death?

Old urban myth ...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Another example:

When I was teaching at a certain large university, the president's office decided to hold a holiday party for the faculty.

Whoever was assigned to address the invitations did something very interesting: addressing the invitations to the male professors as "Mr. and Mrs. John Doe..." and the invitations to the female professors as "Ms. Jane Doe and Guest."

This was especially odd in my department, where about half the men were gay, and the majority of the women were married. We laughed over this, and decided that the least offensive method would have been to address the men's invitations to "Mr. John Doe and Guest" too.

[jgraz]

33. Women are often characterized in terms of their relation to others

Notice how many times a woman is mentioned as "a mom" or "a grandmother", as in "Pleasant Hill Mom runs for Congress." It's often presented in a man-bites-dog tone that implies that whatever the woman is doing is just SOOO unusual because she's a female with children.