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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
A pediatric doctor at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was killed while riding her bike in Center City on Wednesday night.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/deadly-3-car-crash-rittenhouse-philadelphia/3915690/
The original post on the Philadelphia subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1e5wkv0/insane_accident_on_18th_and_spruce/
The use of passive voice in the first sentence does a lot of work shifting blame away from the driver and the car centric systems in an "objective" effort.
How about:
@apfelwoiSchoppen @ByteOnBikes Active voice would be, “A driver killed…”
They're both active voice, they just have different verbs.
Yep, high school grammar 101. It isn't that journalists don't know this, it is how they are trained. Shift obvious blame away from parties for objectivity until a verdict or deference to the status quo.
"was killed" is passive.
Yes, we all agree on that fact. The discussion progressed to two different commentors' active voice re-writes of the original sentence.
Both killed and died are active voice.
@apfelwoiSchoppen But functionally, the victim didn’t die on her own, she died as the direct result of the driver hitting her. For the purpose of accurately portraying who took an action and who was acted upon, it should emphasize the driving, not the dying.
The discussion was active voice vs passive voice, not functionality of active voice vs functionality of differently-worded active voice. They're both still active voice.
@PapaStevesy IMO active voice includes focusing the sentence on the subject that did the action, not the one that was acted upon but by all means let’s argue about grammatical definitions instead of the problem of motorists killing people and journalists normalizing it. 🙄
I mean, you're literally the one who started the argument, being dismissive and condescending about it now just makes you look like a sore loser.
You're the one doing that. Killed/died same difference, but I apologize for not using the same verb as the original quote for clarity.
"was killed" is passive.
Correct. I said killed.
Very interesting, thank you. I was wondering if that also happens in other countries. It is sadly the norm in Germany when reporting car accidents.
Upvote for a better headline and for n-browser translation
Even the word "accident" is part of that downplaying.
Somebody told me that at her hospital they don't say "accident" since it's always preventable. They say "collision"
"Negligence" works too.
The army shifted to this verbiage as well from “accidental discharge” to “negligent discharge” when at the clearing barrels or while on patrol.
Also increased the punishment, and it helped quite a bit in reducing the knuckleheads. No longer a “whoops! Mah bad”
I suspect the tone is used so they aren't sued for stuff. I understand it but I disagree on their usage of it.
"Car driver kills doctor on bicycle"
Works too, though more specific on assignment of judgment. Part of the point for me is to assign blame to the system in which we all must live.
“Car driver kills children's doctor on bicycle”
While I agree with the car centric aspect of this, you should read the article. The top bullets are more specific, and the driver may have had a medical incident.
Thanks, I did. Then I wrote the comment, copied the quote directly from the article. It is the first sentence of the article. I also said the cyclist died, made no indication that the person was "murdered" or anything.
That's a because there is no speculation that she was murdered. If the driver had a stroke, or some other medical incident, it would not be murder.