The New Indian Express "Bobitises" Itself

Amid the array of conflicting stories in the Indian media over the Mumbai attacks last week comes an article that tests the true strength of the local newspaper industry. I'm reprinting it here as it appears on page 9 of today's New Indian Express. Tell me if you think anything is amiss.

Lady dentist bobbitises lover

Bangalore: A city-based private dentist bobbitised her lover with whom she continued to have a relationship even after her marriage.

"Arshad Ali, 33, a Mysore-based practicing doctor, was bobbitised by his lover Syeda Amina, 32, a dentist running her own clinic in Bangalore, on Saturday." Deputy Commissioner of police, South-east division, Soumendhu Mukherjee said on Tuesday.

"Though the motive could be jealousy or sudden change of mind, it is still surprising, since Ali who has known Amina for the past ten years had informed her about his marriage. His wife infact knew of their relationship, which continued even after the marriage," Mukherji said.

"It could be a sudden feeling of jealousy, a perverted mind which made Amina call Ali, who had come home to Bangalore on some work to her clinic. She gave him a glass of juice with sedatives and then bobbitized him in a state of semi-consciousness," he said. Amina then admitted him to a private hospital here on November 20, he added." - Press Trust of India

____

So it's official, "bobbitise" has been accepted as a verb by the Indian news media. Did the reporter just not know what the word "bobbitise" meant, but decided to write the story assuming that his readers would, or was PTI so squeamish about printing its meaning that they decided that only readers familiar with the famous John Bobbit case should know the news of the day.

Addendum: I've noticed a surge in traffic from people looking for the official meaning of "bobbitize" and I realize that I haven not answered their pressing questions. The word comes from the famous incident in 1993 when Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband John's penis with a kitchen-knife and threw the member out the window of her car. For more information check out the Wikipedia entry.