London Cop Who Shot Dead Unarmed Black Man Charged With Murder

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 451 points –
vice.com

Prosecutors have charged a Metropolitan Police officer with murder after he shot rapper Chris Kaba in London last year.

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He shot them dead. It’s a figure of speech, meaning the shot was fatal. So the headline is fine. He shot dead a cat. He shot dead an old lady. He shot dead a black kid.

The headline is technically grammatically correct but ambiguous. "...shot and killed unarmed black man" would have been better. If you absolutely need to stick to word/character count, "shot unarmed black man dead" would be less ambiguous and more in keeping with how people actually use "shot dead". I've watched a lot of westerns and I can think of quite a few where someone says "I shot him dead" but not one where someone says "I shot dead him".

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Figures of speech don't really belong on a headline about murder though

Figures of speech turn up in all writing, and especially in headlines. They’re useful to convey more meaning than is normally possible in few words because they rely on assumed context. Because major goals of headlines include information packing and brevity, idioms, turns of phrase, and figures of speech are common.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

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