Is "crackhead" considered normal use now?

[Ben E Lou]

I just heard this on the morning radio news: "Atlanta Police have vowed to re-assess their jumper policies after an alleged crackhead stopped traffic for 45 minutes at the blah blah blah bridge...."

This was on a news/talk radio station (AM 750), not some teeny-bopper pop station. The term "crackhead" just sounded out of place to me.

[ice4277]

I prefer to be called a "crackerhead". But that's just me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

SD - I'm curious about a couple of things:

-- Do you recall whether the story was reported by Richard Sangster by any chance?
(He tends to use more casual language than anybody else on their staff)

-- Was this the full-blown version of the story, or just a reference in a "headline" style package? Particularly with the latter, Atlanta's Morning News has gotten noticeably more casual over the past couple of years (i.e. you might hear the word "hooker" used instead of "prostitute", "cop" instead of "police officer", etc.)

It's kind of radio's version of the "be hip" directive that CNN instituted for their bottom-of-the-screen headline crawler copy.

[Ben E Lou]

No. It was a woman (Marcie Williams?). It was the full-blown story. They used it in the headline-style package as well.

[Tekneek]

I heard that as well and had to laugh. I don't think I ever heard "alleged crackhead" in a supposedly legitimate news report before. They've been saying it since 5 AM, which was when I heard it on the way in.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Thanks, I was just kinda curious. Sounds to me like an bit of a reach, but not something that's inconsistent with the more casual approach that's been creeping into news (of all forms) for quite a while now.

Worth noting here, I suppose, is that the rule-of-thumb taught for writing copy for at least two decades (not sure whether it's still taught or not, I've been out of the biz quite a while now) was that the average listener comprehends at a 3rd-grade level. A pretty good argument could be made, IMO, that writing "down" to that level almost requires the use of less formal language.

(FTR, that's not their IQ or anything, it's just the avg comprehension level of people listening while doing 2,3,5 other things at the same time)

[Ben E Lou]

Of course, Boortz has called him a crackhead at least a dozen times in the monologue that he's doing right now... ;)

[Tekneek]

Of course, Boortz has called him a crackhead at least a dozen times in the monologue that he's doing right now... ;)

And it's probably not the worst label he will give someone during his show.

[Eaglesfan27]

In New Orleans, I hear the term "crackhead" used all the time :(

[Daimyo]

Cocaine is a helluva a drug...

[JeeberD]

My girlfriend calls me a crackhead all the time. But I swear that it's just rock salt in that pipe...

[rkmsuf]

At least they extended the courtesy of referring to the jumper as an "alleged" crackhead. I thought that was nice.

[Honolulu Blue]

I've heard and occasionally used the term "crackhead" ever since that evil drug became popular, around 1985 or so. It may not be in the dictionaries yet (or maybe they pulled it out for some other, more recent, more popular slang term), but it ought to be.

But I admit "alleged crackhead" sounds funny. Either he is or he isn't.

[rkmsuf]

how that description of the jumper has an bearing on the story or potential policy change is beyond me. Do they have different procedure if a jumper is a suspected drug addict opposed to say just a regular old jumper?

[Tekneek]

Scott Slade is throwing the "crackhead" word around again this morning...every single news break...and yes, Sangster is the one reporting on site and probably instigated the use of the term once again...

[Ksyrup]

This term is getting more play since Tuesday, when Marion Barry won his District Council race.

[Ben E Lou]

This term is getting more play since Tuesday, when Marion Barry won his District Council race.GOLD! :D

[DeToxRox]

Crackhead is the new gay apparently.

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. More on this type of thing. In reference to the Eric Rudolph sentencing, I just heard a radio commentator say that the husband of one of the victims is going to "school" Rudolph on her. When I was growing up, we used "school" in that manner on the playground. Ice Cube used it in "Boyz 'N Da Hood" ("I'm schoolin' deez niggas on da aspect of religion.") I guess it has now passed into acceptable usage.

[Karlifornia]

I get upset when crackhead is used incorrectly, say, to describe behavior that one would expect from someone on acid.

[korme]

That's not fair that you can move threads you started to Gen. Discussion!!

[JeeberD]

That's not fair that you can move threads you started to Gen. Discussion!!

Join the fight, Brother. Maybe if we combine forces we can do something about this travesty...

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=41027

[KWhit]

Crack is wack!

[Ben E Lou]

Join the fight, Brother. Maybe if we combine forces we can do something about this travesty...

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=41027 (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?t=41027)My hope is to start paying attention to archives. I can move *any* thread to GD. I have no idea why they got archived to begin with. If I moved threads quickly from Archives to GD when they get bumped, they can be revived. The problem is that if I don't see it quickly enough, even moving it to GD will push it down several pages.

[oliegirl]

Leo (the puppy) gets super hyper every night about 9:30 or so (we are on the tail end of it as I am typing this)...I refer to this time as his "crackhead" phase and usually make some comment to radii like "Leo's been doing crack again", or "the crackhead dog is back"...I use it all the time in everyday talk to describe people, never thought about it as a normal term or not.

[korme]

On the real though, this girl uses crackhead instead of someone being weird. They are a crackhead. It annoys me... but then again I don't care.

[aran]

"cracked out" was used to mean "weird" back when i was in high school (two years ago)...

Those people were pretty dumb/used cocaine regularly, so whatever.

[korme]

"cracked out" was used to mean "weird" back when i was in high school (two years ago)...

Those people were pretty dumb/used cocaine regularly, so whatever.
Well she's your average ditz sooo... it's all the same as a regular drug addict.