Hipbone’s Believe it or Not
[ by Charles Cameron — how quickly language changes — with a Swiftian nibble chaser]
.
From the story update to a 2013 CSM piece, upper panel — oh! how true of so much in the modern mainstream media — with my more succinct 2016 phrasing below:
**
It’s good to know the editors at CSM are protecting their readers from a too-literal — perhaps one might say, fundamentalist — reading of their text.
The headline of the story in question reads:
Why do people want to eat babies? Scientists explain.
The subhead:
Admit it: When presented with a baby, you’ve experienced a fleeting desire to eat it. Now science has an explanation.
And better yet, the lead — some would say, lede:
If you’re like most normal people, you’ve briefly considered eating a baby or two.
**
Jonathan Swift might have thought the editors too politcally correct for the necessities of the day, noting —
A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
January 8th, 2016 at 6:04 pm
Call it the Gilles de Rais principle.