prog | The only comment I'll make

Ugh. I can't believe this is an AP headline.

"MIT coed with fake bomb 'art' arrested"

Problems here:

Co-ed is an outmoded term. I am pretty sure that the AP style guide explicitly stated this when I studied it over a decade ago. Do they make an exception for headlines? If so, what difference does it make what gender the person was?

There was no fake bomb. It was a sweatshirt modified to have a light-up message, and by all accounts one that the person frequently wore. But every other headline is saying the same thing, and such was the best general knowledge in the first few moments after the arrest, so I can give this a reluctant pass. I'll be pissed if it sez this in tomorrow's print newspapers, though.

I know that putting 'art' in quotes is ostensibly the headline writer saying that someone in the story is quoted as calling it art, but it ends up just sounding really snotty, as in my two year old kid could do that or whatever.

I can see why they get called scare quotes, when hack journalists/editors use them inconsistently. If it said:

'MIT coed with "fake bomb art" arrested'

(as it really should) then it would be perfectly OK. After all, it's only a fake bomb according to a couple of people as well.

The only comment I'll make

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