The Professor
			6.23.05
		Sloppiness at the Star “Net Opens Door to Wolves Who Prey on Kids for Sex” This was the banner headline on a late-week edition of the Kansas City Star. Under normal circumstances, I would either glide right past something like this or stop and take a closer look. In this case, however, I found myself locked in a kind of mediated purgatory: I couldn’t turn away from the headline, but I couldn’t bring myself to read an article so shoddily advertised. Worse yet, the crazy thing is still on my mind. It’s reformed by understanding of stupidity: It’s so stupid, it’s interesting. There is something wrong with virtually linguistic feature of this headline. Seriously. Let’s begin with “NET OPENS DOOR”, a curious clause in that it puts an entity to work in a world beyond our own, where Internets can open doors (and perhaps get my morning paper). Now, of course the phrase is a figurative expression – it’s not really meant to be taken to mean that the Internet is actually opening a door – and I’m more than a fair-weather fan of innovative metaphors. But this phrase contorts every metaphorical image I have of “the Internet”: a web, a grid, a super-cool traffic system, a blinking and flashing brain, and so on. Never in my life have I seen the Internet – sorry, the Net – placed in a sentence where it acts like a human being. After seeing this headline, I can see that that’s for good reason. Assume that the metaphor is valid, though. Even then, the phrase “OPENS DOOR TO” remains rather puzzling (if not altogether incorrect) in conjunction with the preposition “TO”. Usually, this phrase connotes something along the lines of “to create an opportunity for X” or “to make A available”, and generally X is taken to be something positive. It’s difficult to see how opening the door to “WOLVES WHO PREY ON KIDS FOR SEX” could be construed as something positive – that is, unless you’re one of the wolves with a sexual interest in children. Along the way, this brings us to the “WOLVES WHO PREY ON KIDS FOR SEX”. Ignoring the fact that wolves are not people, and thus would demand the pronoun “that” instead of “who”, I’d simply point out here that the use of metaphor is a bit … explicit. This is a problem, since it doesn’t really capture the notion that the word “prey” could encompass. These perverts might be of the preying variety – I’m sure they are – but to call them “wolves” takes the meaning of “prey” on step too far. These people are predators, a word that captures the multiplicity of animals that seek out unwitting victims in their own special way. When I read the headline, I thought for a moment that the author was literally talking about wolves. “How could that even be possible?” you might ask. Exactly, I’d respond. Come on, though. We all know what we’re talking about. Right, but that doesn’t excuse the author of the headline from poor writing. “Sexual predator” would work just fine, if not better, and it would avoid the over-the-top image of snarling canines outside of the door that Mr. Net opened up for them. Come on? No, you come on.
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