Monday Morning Silliness: L.A. Times Reports Suspect in Fatal Crash Suffered a Ruptured “Blatter”
A piece by Matt Stevens in the L.A. Times says:
Authorities have identified a suspected drunk driver who they say drove the wrong direction on the 60 Freeway in Diamond Bar early Sunday and caused an accident that killed six people.
Olivia Carolee Culbreath, 21, of Fontana has been arrested on suspicion of felony DUI and felony manslaughter, said Rodrigo Jimenez, a California Highway Patrol spokesman on the scene. Culbreath is in serious condition at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center with a broken femur and a ruptured bladder, Jimenez said.
No problem there. The thing is, that last sentence initially read that the suspect had a ruptured “blatter.” And when professional newspeople put that stuff on the Internet, it stays there — if you know where to look.
The tipoff comes in the comments. The first one (at the bottom) says:
Ruptured “blatter”? What is wrong with this newspaper. It’s a ruptured BLADDER! Please read what you write/type.
And it turns out that if you put this phrase into Google:
Culbreath is in serious condition at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center with a broken femur and a ruptured blatter, Jimenez said.
You get a result that shows two links: one to a news aggregator that scraped the L.A. Times article, and one to the L.A. Times article.
The link to the aggregator is still available and I have preserved a screenshot here. (That URL in the bottom left of the screenshot is the URL you get when you hover the cursor over the “more” at the end of the quote.)
By the way, in response to the commenter “Please read what you write/type.” another commenter replied:
That would require someone that is being paid above minimum wage.
An argument for increasing the minimum wage!
Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader.
Maybe they meant to say a “ruptured pooper” but an editor thought “blatter” was less risqué.
SGT Ted (cf4ec9) — 2/10/2014 @ 7:49 amAt least they didn’t ID her as a victim.
AZ Bob (0d38f6) — 2/10/2014 @ 7:57 amReports say she was traveling 100 MPH. If so, manslaughter seems inadequate.
Kevin M (dbcba4) — 2/10/2014 @ 8:07 amThat would require someone that is being paid above minimum wage.
Interns don’t get the minimum wage.
Kevin M (dbcba4) — 2/10/2014 @ 8:08 amGoddam senseless Southlanders!!!
Colonel Haiku (d7b396) — 2/10/2014 @ 8:16 amThe laid off copy editors are laughing malevolently over their beer.
Patricia (be0117) — 2/10/2014 @ 8:39 amI googled it on Alta Vista*. It is a word, meaning to prate, babble. It wouldn’t bother me if she smashed her mouth too. It’s also the name of the current FIFA president, Joseph Blatter. I hope he’s ok.
*That’s a trademark joke.
nk (dbc370) — 2/10/2014 @ 8:46 amGreetings:
Wordsmithy are hard.
11B40 (c47d61) — 2/10/2014 @ 9:06 amActually, wouldn’t this be an argument *AGAINST* raising the minimum wage?
If you need someone above minimum wage in order to review your ‘blatter’, then increasing minimum wage will increase the number of people at that new minimum, thus having less people above minimum wage, thus less people to review.
QED.
(Next week’s lesson: applying logic to the myth of the chupacabra)
Another Anon (f43943) — 2/10/2014 @ 12:13 pmO Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Mitch (341ca0) — 2/10/2014 @ 1:37 pmwie treu sind deine Blätter ~
Being paid more than the minimum wage should be required only for employees having more than the minimum INTELLIGENCE.
Hangtown Bob (f7f8fb) — 2/11/2014 @ 7:10 amStupid as it is that people whose trade lies explicitly and essentially only in the written language mangle it so, please do not forget that in the making of this episode, six innocent people died. I’m certain that their life’s dreams did not include having the injuries of the person whose actions caused their own deaths to be misspelled, and thus can now rest in peace. Perspective, please, is all I ask…
NeoCon_1 (5a5908) — 2/11/2014 @ 1:44 pm