More awful HuffPo writing

[Victor Steinbok]

I must have my prescriptivist hat on tonight. Although the actual title
of the page is different, the title that shows up in "Most Popular"
links is "Georgia Man Develops Flesh-Eating Bacteria; Is Third Case In
Recent Weeks ".

http://goo.gl/dV7Bd

"Develops" is a funny word here. Usually, when I see "develops" in
similar circumstances, a disease or a set of symptoms follow. One could
develop "a case of Flesh-Eating Bacteria". I suppose, a wound might
develop an infection or even bacteria, but not a person. So we have two
options--either it was a screw-up or "flesh-eating bacteria", as a
lexical unit, is being treated as the name of a disease. I'm actually
inclined toward the latter, even though it still sounds strange.

> A third person reportedly has flesh-eating bacteria, also known as
> necrotizing fasciitis, according to news reports.

OK, I suppose, I'm nitpicking here, but "also known as" usually gives
something other than the standard medical terminology. That is, I would
have no objection to talking about necrotizing fasciitis "also known as
the flesh-eating bacteria". But, as I said, I'm nitpicking here.

> However, NBC's 11Alive reported that doctors say there is no link
> between the three cases.
>

Well, thank Thor for that! Wouldn't want the three cases over a period
of a week in two neighboring states to be linked, would we? And the
lapse from first to last is more like two weeks. So, if the ratio holds,
we should see about 75 to 150 cases per year, right? Uhm... no.

> There are about 10,000 to 15,000 necrotizing fasciitis infections each
> year in the U.S., with 2,000 to 3,000 deaths, according to the
> Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
>

That's off by a factor of 100! So why do these three cases make news as
if they form some sort of cluster? Did I say that these guys did not
want to be seen as scientifically illiterate? Apparently, I was wrong.

That's not to say that things get better grammatically. No nitpicking
this time.

> Three or four days later, the part of the body where the infected
> wound is may start to swell up and dark marks and rashes may occur.
> The actual wound may also start to have a "bluish, white, or dark,
> mottled, flaky appearance," according to the study. And within four or
> five days, the body's blood pressure may decrease and *may experience
> septic shock*. The person may also become unconscious.

I highlighted "may experience septic shock"--what is the subject of that
verb? Grammatically, it's "blood pressure", but, of course, it's just a
colorless green idea.

> Other treatments may be needed for the other problems that come with
> infection -- like possible organ failure or shock -- and hyperbaric
> oxygen therapy may also be used to stop the body's tissue from dying,
> WebMD reported.

Are "possible organ failure or shock" "other treatments" or "other
problems". I can't really tell. But I'm cranky tonight--don't put any
limbs in front of me, I just might bight them off ... like the
flesh-eating bacteria.

     VS-)

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