Following the shootings in West Cumbria, I heard and read in the media several descriptions of the people of West Cumbria. Descriptions in praise of them, but always making them sound "other". What choice of words and manner of delivery gave that effect? I remember descriptions of the people of Dewsbury around the "kidnap" of Shannon Mathews that had that same other-making feel. They were something like an anthropological description. Praising but distancing.
Is it always like this? Or would a description of Londoners describe them as "us" rather than "them"?
Michael Bell
