(no subject)

The conventions of journalism create some odd effects at times:

"Teacher's boyfriend 'kills' student after catching him in bed with her"

'Kills' is of course in 'quotation marks' because at this stage it's an allegation and they don't want to get sued, but the headline makes it sound like slightly bizarre, as though the victim is not actually dead but only 'dead'.

"An incident like this is a highly complex and technical matter and it takes time to complete a thorough... investigation."

The ellipsis is of course only meant to indicate that a few words have been omitted, but it lends this sentence a rather... sinister tone.