Friday, January 12, 2007

Sporthand

Now hear this: There is no "Duke lacrosse rape case," and not only because it's no longer a rape case.

Call it the Duke case if you must in a headline pinch, but in text you really need to slow down, take a breath, and call it what it is, even if it requires an extra word or two. It's a sexual-assault case against three Duke University lacrosse players.

As for "lacrosse rape," yikes. I'm just going to look the other way and hope the term could refer only to an officiating error that costs your favorite team a victory.

2 comments:

tom said...

I had the same thought rimming the story last night. As luck would have it I had room for either "rape" or "case" and I went with case.

DV said...

Welcome back Bill. That was a long sabbatical!