What the hell is up with the news?
There was a bad accident here yesterday. A truck driver hauling a load of wood lost control of his truck on a bridge. All the wood fell over the side onto some poor guy's car below, killing him.
The news reports it like this: A truck driver hauling a load of wood
allegedly lost control of his truck on a bridge. All the wood fell over the side onto some poor guy's car below, killing him.
No he did it on purpose. They do this all the time...anyone know why? It's pretty apparent to anyone but an idiot that it happened. It's not like people have no idea who was driving....
I looked the word up in dictionary.com:
Quote:
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Usage Note: An alleged burglar is someone who has been accused of being a burglar but against whom no charges have been proved. An alleged incident is an event that is said to have taken place but has not yet been verified. In their zeal to protect the rights of the accused, newspapers and law enforcement officials sometimes misuse alleged. Someone arrested for murder may be only an alleged murderer, for example, but is a real, not an alleged, suspect in that his or her status as a suspect is not in doubt. Similarly, if the money from a safe is known to have been stolen and not merely mislaid, then we may safely speak of a theft without having to qualify our description with alleged.
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Any lawyers here who can explain this overuse of the term....is it really necessary?