Wall Street Journal reports LAPD made payments to Occupy LA protesters

Well, not exactly. But, "disburse" was an interesting choice of verbs in that there headline up there.

(thanks, Alec MacKaye!)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: lol • occupy los angeles • occupy wall street • ows

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Daniel Smith

Who, exactly, are they disbursing the camp to? Inquiring minds want to know.
aaronmhill

I know that mass media has been sourcing twitter for its stories, but now it’s phoning in its spelling too? (Note the use of “it’s” and “its” in that sentence, WSJ editors)
pitchspork

VERRRRRY Freudian!
nickelrocket

This is why grammar nazis exist, people. Learn to spell ya lazy hipsters. Now get off my lawn.
AirPillo

There is no wrong spelling in Newspeak, only wrong ideology.

(WSJ being owned by News Corporation, I wouldn’t set too high a bar)
Bagobones

From your own Websters link
disburse = distribute
2:distribute

thus

distribute
3 : a to divide or separate especially into kinds
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  Thank you, Captain Obvious. I am familiar with the contents of the page I linked to. However, the verb is almost exclusively used in the context of distributing payment, and I have never seen it used to describe “forcing protesters at threat of force to scatter from a camp.” There are many other words that could have been used here; one thing a good copyeditor does is to choose language that will be read and understood easily by the maximum number of people in the audience. If this wasn’t a mistake (and I didn’t say it was, as I’m not a copyeditor), it’s an odd choice.
  
  It almost certainly seems to be a word used where “disperse” was intended.
Another Kevin

From the Latin: “dis”, “away” + “bursa”, “purse, bag” – so they’re snatching the purses and backpacks of the Occupiers. Sounds pretty close to the truth to me, if LA goes the way NY did.
Mister44

Probably nothing more than an auto-complete or spell check gone awry with sloppy proof reading. Obviously they meant “disperse”.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  No, really? Do tell!
xzzy

The important question is whether or not I can get my hands on of any of this new bailout money.

I don’t own a bank or have a mortgage, so I kind of missed out on that gravy train. Can I get free money if I show up to protest?
Henry Pootel

A derdlexing move by pislexic newsdader epitors derhads. Harp to say when the dolice pedartment is involvep.
coffee100

Why are police wearing riot gear when there is no riot?

Why are police illegally preventing Americans from protesting the Government on public property?

How much does it cost to send 1500 police officers to attack a peaceable assembly? Where is this money coming from? California is running a $30 billion deficit.
- GlenBlank
  
  Why are police wearing riot gear when there is no riot?
  
  Because they’re not psychic, and they can’t predict the future in any reliable detail, and because the Boy Scouts aren’t the only ones who believe in Being Prepared.
  
  Why are police illegally preventing Americans from protesting the Government on public property?
  
  They’re not. They’re quite legally preventing people from camping in a city park after midnight.
  
  You can’t petition the government for redress of grievances when they’re all at home sleeping.
  
  How much does it cost to send 1500 police officers to attack a peaceable
  assembly? Where is this money coming from? California is running a $30 billion deficit.
  
  I don’t know, but I do know that the LAPD’s costs don’t come out of the California State budget.
  
  Did you sleep through Civics class or something?
  - GlenBlank
    
    And in fact, LAPD chief Charlie Beck says most of the cost of policing the Occupy LA encampment (not just the eviction; the whole thing) will come, not from the LA City budget, but from private funds collected for policing the Michael Jackson memorial.
    
    How’s that for taxing the 1%? :-)
  - coffee100
    
    Because they’re not psychic, and they can’t predict the future in any reliable detail, and because the Boy Scouts aren’t the only ones who believe in Being Prepared.
    
    Then why stop at riot gear? If they are truly doing their best to “be prepared” they should be wearing body armor, stationing artillery emplacements and carrying grenades. For all they know, the protesters might have cybernetic shock troops on station waiting for a signal to attack by air.
    
    Might want to look up the word “escalation.”
    
    They’re quite legally preventing people from camping in a city park after midnight.
    
    I wasn’t aware the First Amendment had hours of operation. Any act of government that abridges peaceable assembly has no force of law in the United States, period, case closed.
    
    And no, I don’t want to hear any of the Supreme Court’s legal theories either. These are the same people who ruled defendants aren’t entitled to a jury trial if the potential sentence is six months or less, a ruling which directly contradicts the fifth and sixth amendments.
    
    You can’t petition the government for redress of grievances when they’re all at home asleep.
    
    You seem to think Americans who risk their safety in the search for justice is funny. Just out of curiosity, what do you take seriously?
    
    I don’t know, but I do know that the LAPD’s costs don’t come out of the California State budget.
    
    O rly? In 2010, California voters passed Proposition 22 specifically to get local law enforcement funding out of the hands of the State Legislature and back to cities and counties, many of which had been required to cut police and fire services because of the growing deficits in the state budget.
    
    So yeah, the $30 billion does have a direct impact on local law enforcement funding, including the LAPD.
    
    Did you sleep through Civics class or something?
    
    At least I wasn’t absent the day they taught the Bill of Rights.
kartwaffles

Humerus!
Manny

They had “disperse” in the body of the story. Bad copy editor, no cookie today.
Shai_Hulud

malapropism shmalapropism…

In the words of Inigo Montaya- “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

But spellcheck said it was ok?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  But spellcheck said it was ok?
  
  Spellcheck doesn’t check the title/subject field, only the body text. Just like in e-mail.
RJ

Dah, hey yous guys, ah… I tink dey meant “dispoice,” not “dispoice,” hahahahaha.
Jessica N.

They appear to have fixed it!
ValHallan

Gotta hand it to the LAPD for “diffusing” a potentially explosive situation. Sigh.
- 3eff_jeff
  
  Hey, at least they used their spill chicken.
Dmitry Petrovich

Maybe this is just how language develops. We needed a new, shortcut, word for taking away First Amendment rights and the always hip, cool and James Jocycian WSJ has chosen to go the extra mile and give us this new word usage.

You can now have two grades of tear gas… military grade and disbursian grade.

Police units assigned to monitor 99% of the population can be called Disbursian units.

If the people gather again they could be said to have rebursed and therefore drawn the ire of the Disbursors.
Teller

I think the correct term for this activity is “…dispersecute.”
Guest

Beat protesters with wads of greenbacks? It could only be a WSJ fetish.
wes harris

In Soviet OWS, Government protest you?
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

The MSM’s regard for its readership is writ large here; illiterate monkeys are good enough to write for you lot.