Comment by SirFatty

6 days ago

"The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. "

That's a really odd take.

> odd take

It's not odd when the sentiment is widespread, for example, look at the other comments in this thread that talk about it.

It's not that odd - it's simply pointing out that phrasing can and does play a rather large role in how we internalize and react to news.

For what it's worth, I agree. It never crossed my mind that the phrasing could lead anyone to believe the suicides were "unavoidable" or an "act of God", especially when the title clearly ties the suicides to a causation.

The phrasing could be made more accusatory, but I don't think that's inherently better.