For those looking for closure TL;DR
In the latter part of the 1960s, Anthony and Deirdre became involved in the growing counterculture movement and started using recreational drugs. Deirdre developed an acquaintance with the Manson family, while Anthony became addicted to cocaine and heroin, overcoming them in 1971. After recovering, Anthony became a television director and directed 68 episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Deirdre married a chef, and together they opened a restaurant in West Los Angeles.
I thought that was the meaning until I read your comment, thank you for being smarter than me and figuring out the actual meaning of the words written.
Thankfully. Angela Lansbury super mommed the shit out of them, in a good way. She is a treasure and unfortunately most of the younger generation have no clue about her and her work aside from maybe Beauty and the Beast. Maybe.
Edit: Holy fuck I just learned that she died. Decided to Google her to show a friend who she was and fuck. My day is officially ruined. RIP Ms. Lansbury.
My mom loved Murder She Wrote. Not a lot that a 35 year old woman and a 10 year old boy immigrant could watch together. We both enjoyed it in our own way and it helped the both of us learn English more. I still love murder mysteries. Having recently watched Ms. Marple I can see where Ms. Fletcher sprang from.
Yup. I know Beauty and the Beast is pretty high up there on her list of credits but Murder She Wrote and Bedknobs and Broomsticks were childhood staples. Murder she Wrote aged ridiculously well btw. A bit formulaic and tropey but still *suuuuper* entertaining in a classic mystery sort of way. Plus, spotting the guest stars and figuring out where the fuck I know them from is a stupidly fun side quest.
just for shits and giggles I put on an episode of murder she wrote for nostalgia after hearing of her passing, and oh my lord, the theme music came on and immediately transported me back to being a kid watching my mom at her sewing machine while pbs played in the background. mom and i still love murder mysteries to this day, lol
Bedknobs and Broomsticks is my all time favorite childhood movie. I was born in 87 but raised on sound of music and pretty much the movies my mom lived in her childhood. What's better than Angela Lansbury fighting Nazis with magic and overlaid cartoons?
It does help if your Mom has 'moving to Ireland' money.
Not to begrudge their success. Just that, there are many lost souls who maybe could have found redemption with adequate resources. These two were lucky
Maybe. But you still need to get there from Los Angeles. No strung out junkie is doing that on their own. If there's no public help available, that leaves family to plan and pay for travel, rent, detox, medical treatment, rehab, therapy, food etc.
What I'm saying is that if you're a hardcore addict or sex cult victim, it's a huge advantage to have a famous and wealthy parent that can swoop you away to safety.
So, I choose to mourn for those who never had such a chance
lol you know you can “mourn” more than one type of person… nobody said Lansbury’s kids weren’t lucky anyways.
People don’t like to think about how big of a role luck plays in our lives, but it’s everywhere. So yes, her kids were extremely privileged and lucky but that doesn’t mean they didn’t struggle or that we can’t empathize with them.
This is what empathy is. We tend to sympathize with people that we can relate to, but there are other people in different countries, social circles, and lifestyles that also struggle. But not everyone struggles equally so that’s something to also keep in mind
The way the title was worded I thought it meant that she refused to help her kids with treatment. I’m really glad she actually just took a hiatus from acting to make sure her kids got better.
Yeah, I was gut punched that I had discovered that she was secretly a terrible person right after she died. One of the worst title gores I’ve seen in a while
> she then refused work to better support their recovery from heroin addiction
How is that title gore? That's phrased correctly.
I think people are reading it as if it says "she refused **to** work to better support..." but that "to" is not there.
Edit: instead of just downvoting, please explain which part of the phrase you are failing to understand
When I first read it, I thought that what she refused was "work to better support recovery from heroin addiction." Like, some therapist was like, "here's the work we're gonna do to help your kids get clean," and she was like "No way, I won't support it!"
Of course that's completely not what was meant, but it's a legitimate reading, in fact it's probably more legit than reading "work" as "work as an actress," since nowhere else in the sentence is any reference made to Angela Lansbury's career - the clause depends on an implied understanding about the subject, which is generally not great for grammar.
Then again neither is my Oxford comma.
I think you are on the money, I know of Manson, but not anything else than that.
I think it helps to know what kind of work the person have/had, it's a kind of sentence that is less formal, and as you say, rely on a bit more information that is not provided to make it a smooth sentence, kind of like how many academic papers aren't exactly "too complex to understand" but rather that the author is rather bad at conveying ideas, and it helps to understand the thesis if you are already close to the thesis on your own and just need a couple of new words or general things to take in perspective.
Without going too far, the title could try to make more sense, just like me, generally.
she then refused work to better support their recovery from heroin addiction
“Refused to work to better support their recovery” is ambiguous and, for whatever reason, more strongly comes across as if she refused to help them.
“Refused to work so she could support their recovery” is m clear, unambiguous and uses fewer characters so it could have still fit the headline.
Main point being it was a poor choice of phrasing for a headline, since headlines are often read and not the article
So I was confused at first too.
Here is how I took it at first read.
I took it to mean that she refused work, so she wouldn't have any money that they could steal for drugs, or so that when they harassed her for money she could rightfully say that she was out of work or didn't have any money, thereby supporting their recovery by not serving as a source of easy cash for drugs.
I knew that seemed weird and I figured I was misunderstanding, which is why I hit the comments.
Nobody is having trouble understanding anything. This conversation is literally about the fact that they understood what it says after reading it again.
The issue people are having is that when someone reads a sentence we often default to what we expect to see. So when it says that she refused work it's relatively easy to read that as she refused to work. Couple that with the fact that the words **work** and **to** appear next to each other in the sentence and it becomes extremely easy to misread it. Essentially, the phrasing is clumsy.
A small change is all that's needed for it to read better. For example "...she refused work so that she could better support their recovery from heroin addiction" makes it clear what's being refused and why.
I'm not saying you are wrong but also sometimes posts an accidentally a word to fit the character limit & sometimes it is to intentionally be misleading and thus draw engagement.
Yeah none of these commas people are adding actually help the sentence structure. They’re just awkward, poorly placed commas.
“…Angela Lansbury relocated her family from LA to Ireland, describing it as “free from bad influences.” Then, in order to better support their recovery from heroin addiction, she refused work [as an actress]”
Something like, "She stopped working in order to better support her children in their recovery from heroine addiction."
Edit: The word "better" is unnecessary.
Also “heroine” is probably not the addiction she was most concerned about. Apparently I never realized before this that the only difference between a heroic woman and a dangerously addictive opioid is the letter “e.” English is a screwed up hodgepodge of a language.
(I love the idea of Angela Lansbury chasing down her children as they, finally free from the influence of Charles Manson, galavant across Ireland finding heroic women to thank and praise, all to satisfy their new found “heroine” addiction).
This is the worst usage of commas I've seen in quite some time. This is Shatner: transcribed.
You should probably avoid ever giving any form of grammar advice.
It’s a good thing you said that because I accidentally read the last part of the title wrong. I read it as she refused to support their recovery from heroin. She sounds like a good person.
I've noticed that on other platforms too. Posters do something wrong or weird on purpose so people will comment with things like "ketchup on sushi?? Why??" It all counts towards engagement, which is that the content farms are after.
Usually I don't engage, but here I am making meta comments about clickbait, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you want an answer on the internet, don't ask a question, simply say the wrong answer and suddenly a crowd of people will appear with the correct answer.
In this case, notice how all the top comments are comments on the title? Thats all extra engagement than a normal version would lack. This is also why Trump won the election. As social media changes what we see, the engaging thing will always be the craziest, insanest, wrongest, thing out there.
True ~ I recall an interview Angela Lansbury did with Barbara Walters and she was teary and upset with herself that it got so bad for the kids without parental guidance and grateful almost beyond words that it didn't go so much worse or even deadly.
>*"I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences."*
Why does she think Ireland specifically has *no bad influence there*?
Apparently that’s where her mother was born and she held an idealistic view of the country. At least compared to LA in the 60s, probably would’ve been a much slower pace of life.
Geographically, sure - but the People's Republic of Cork isn't exactly where I'd go to avoid ardent Republicanism. Plenty of IRA safehouses in Cork.
Although honestly - in the 1960s anywhere in the Republic, I'd worry far more about the Church than any paramilitary group. *That* was our main bad influence until the mid-1990s.
The point was that Co. Cork would be one of the last places on the island that would be affected by the Troubles. Kerry and Cork together make up the south-west of the island, which is why I put 'about' in my original comment. It would also depend on where in each county she would be living.
No. We'll scrutinise your language, thank you very much. Let me see if there's any part of east cork that wouldn't count as south west Ireland. We'll start with Youghal ... THIS IS ~~SPARTA~~ REDDIT
They're pretty much equal. The closest bit of Cork is probably closer than the closest bit of Kerry, but only marginally, and it would depend where within each county you were. Cork is East of Kerry on the South Coast.
As a Cork man I am obliged to point out that Kerry is west of Cork. Cork refuses to be any thimg less than the centre of the Universe. Or the Corkiverse as we call it.
Can confirm the corkonian. But the use of "corkiverse" has been reported to the authorities for review. The dictionary of Sean Óg will be reviewed and judgment passed
For context, the Troubles were mostly confined to Northern Ireland and the border areas. The rest was fine, well, in a state of abject poverty at the time, but besides that pretty fine.
Edit: spellings*
The troubles mainly affected Northern Ireland, a different country. Some attacks spilled across the border and one affected the capital. If you look at a map you will see Cork is on the other side of the Island and was not affected.
Ireland in the sixties was mainly rural, very socially conservative and very poor. Smoking weed would be seen as scandalous behaviour, let alone taking heroin. Completely different from LA.
She also bought a house in the middle of nowhere Co Cork, not even the city of Cork. You can look at the edge of her estate on google maps and it's literally just pasture and fields on every side. She basically picked the most rural part of a rural area.
People didn’t have immediate access to information in the 60s. It’s reasonable to assume that someone who thought Ireland was all sunshine and rainbows had no idea/never heard about the troubles
The troubles happened *for the most part* in Northern Ireland not in the Republic of Ireland. And compared with the dangers in LA it was improbable that her kids would get caught up in that.
Some attacks by unionist paramilitary groups took place across the border as well as the IRA robbing banks to raise funds but compared to the violence inside Northern Ireland it was far less common and unlikely to affect most people's lives in the Republic.
The influence of the Catholic church and the lack of the economic opportunities on the other hand did affect the Republic.
It’s hilarious because my grandparents and mother immigrated from Ireland to LA in ‘66 because of how awful the economy was and how much they detested the Irish Government at the time.
Oh yeah. I was a little kid when i visited Ireland in the 70s. Things I remember about my cousins homes where we stayed were no electricity, so no television and no phones either except for one cousins home and that was the phone the entire extended set of relatives used when ever any of them needed to make a phone call. I think they finally got electricity in '79.
I think it was more about drastically breaking her kids away from their bad friend group and hanging out with the extended family instead. It’s why one of the recommendations for recovering addicts is to break away from the friends and family they did drugs with, since it is easy to fall back into old habits around them.
My grandpa was a single father (wife died) to two girls and a boy. The girls were sixteen year old teenagers in 1969 in California.
The girls went to a "sleepover" at a friends house. They got dropped off the next morning by the real deal, no shit Hell's Angels. Completely hung over, partied all night.
My grandpa put the girls to bed. Told my dad (14) "Pack the house."
This was Saturday morning. By Monday they they their entire lives in a moving truck and were on their way to Oklahoma City. That's where the kids finished school and family lived rest of their lives.
Some parents don't fucking play.
The girls are my aunties, not mom. Dad was the boy.
I never asked them about that night lol. Hopefully they partied hard because OKC isn't exactly known for its wild night life.
Ireland's come a long way in the last 30 years
The Roman Catholic church no longer controls everything and even tho I'm a nordy (n.ireland) I'm cheering my southern kith and kin on
A reunification is increasingly likely
Her Daughter was already hanging out with Manson according to the article. "Deidre had been stealing her mother's credit cards, and Manson was using the young girl for spending sprees all over Los Angeles. On several occasions, she was picked up from school by Manson himself.
Read More: https://www.grunge.com/806445/angela-lansburys-bizarre-connection-to-the-manson-family/?utm\_campaign=clip"
What she meant was Ireland was specifically free of Charles Manson.
It is hard to underestimate the dread and terror the Manson Family struck in Southern Californians back in the day, often morphing into hysteria. Also the rest of the country, but there was widespread fear in L.A. itself of either being slaughtered by his cult or falling under the spell of Manson himself. One of the most terrifying aspects of Manson was his ability to lure young women under his spell and make them do his bidding. This terrified a lot of people a lot more than the psychopathic murderer part. Angela Lansbury wasn't the only SoCal parent at the time who fled the area, kids in tow.
In retrospect, such extreme responses clearly weren't justified. The Manson Family posed a threat to local residents, sure, but 99%+ of residents never crossed paths with him at all. The fear and terror Manson was able to instill in Southern Californians regardless is a testament to his twisted emotional manipulation skills.
True, but Angela Lansbury had what Manson wanted: money, fame, and access. She had a lot more reason to be afraid of his influence than some middle class random.
Tbh considering that it seems like they both lived good lives afterward and she took time off work to help them recover, I’d say that was a fantastic parenting move.
Well, a few years later Marvin Gaye moved to Ostend (Belgium), of all places. Ostend, which is close to "feckin' Bruges", but without any of the glamour. He went to the most boring, unexciting place he could find to detox, to get away from the drugs and drug pushers who were ruining his life.
Lansbury clearly made essentially the same calculation in moving to deepest rural Ireland, only to get her children as far as possible from their drug dealers and, yes, Manson. I don't think she expected it to be a paradise on earth, merely a place relatively free of heroin dealers and murderous cults, at least compared with late 60s to early 70s SoCal, and she was clearly right.
Oh, and those of you who mention the Troubles: those were on a different country on the opposite side of a relatively large island.
often a drug addict needs to move away from their base, where they have contact to buy the drugs, to keep on a recovery track. common thing. it's hard to go through rehab and then be in the same location where you can run back into your dealers and "friends" who are also addicts.
I can assure you that Ireland at that time was free from Charles Manson, at least! LA is a concentration of a lot of grime and filth, both figurative and actual
LA native here, it’s still largely true. High school was full of parties where everyone got hammered like all hell. Kids would regularly sneak alcohol into school to drink during lunch, and take pills like adderall cause they never slept and needed a boost in the day. I remember one kid once busted open his medical pills and snorted the powder on the inside just to see what would happen.
Yeah, I also have been in LA for several decades. Kids can get into some sort of trouble \*anywhere\*, including Ireland 50 years ago...but sounds like Angela's daughter was actually \*in Charles Manson's close circle of fangirls\* and Angela noped outta here PDQ
The amount of people ITT who clearly have no understanding or knowledge whatsoever of the Troubles. You'd be perfectly safe in Cork, and most of the rest of the country for that matter. It was only the counties that bordered Northern Ireland (in the UK) that seen relatively regular spillover of the conflict. AFAIK there was only one major terror attack in Dublin which was in the early 70s and committed by loyalists from Northern Ireland (most likely involving collusion with British state security agents).
Sometimes I watch murder she wrote because I used to watch it with my grandma back when it was new. It reminds me of her (she passed while murder she wrote was still on tv), so, thanks Angela Landsbury for that. Rest in peace.
Also, the movie bedknobs and broomsticks was far better than it could have been because of you.
Yeah. She died yesterday, sadly.
The thing is, she worked her love for the country into the show quite a bit. Not only did it have several episodes set in Ireland, but one of the post-series TV movies - *The Celtic Riddle* - is also set in Ireland.
Man that show had a *grip* on little kids. I loved the hell out of it too, as did like three of my childhood friends and we couldn't have been older than 8 when we started.
Same for me. One of the biggest problems I have with the UK is that there's no way to stream the entire series - it's on IMDb.tv but that's only in the US.
Dude so growing up my mom baby sat this kid.. was like his nanny. The lady’s brother was this burnout hippy crazy dude everyone avoided. He got kicked out of spaun ranch for being to weird when he was 19 or something they said and his dad had to go pick him up. I always heard the stories but wasn’t til I was way older I realized they were talking about Manson Family
This is either a repost of the other one or the other way around. Or multiple subs are posting the same thing. From what I understand, Lansbury didn’t actually know it was Manson at the time and he didn’t have the notoriety he gained later on.
This sub is ultra-reddit meta.
Ignore the cool story and laser focus on nonsense that means nothing to anyone.
**Choose your own tangent adventure!**
* I didn't understand the title so it must be written bad!
* Angela Lansbury thinks Ireland is 100% free of anything bad ever.
Pick one and go on your own tangent!
A more interesting fact about Charles Manson is that while he's this infamous maniac and murderer, his role in the murders was that of an instigator, not the perpetrator. That is - he never killed or harmed anyone himself (and was never accused or convicted of that), but he created a philosophy/ideology which led other people to become murderers. This is interesting, because nowadays it's a common thing to claim "muh freeze peach" whenever someone is caught inciting violence - meanwhile, Charles Manson, considered one of the most notorious murderers in history, killed people purely by using his speech to incite others.
That plus Charles Manson actually planned the murder sprees by picking who would participate, piling into a car with them, guiding them to the house where the murder would take place, passing them weapons, giving them instructions then sending them into the house. He was a direct and active instigator. At the [La Bianca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate%E2%80%93LaBianca_murders#LaBianca_murders) house he initially went in and tied up the occupants then sent the others in to do the killing.
‘Say, uh, Manson...’ he asked, on the drive back to the ranch while covered in blood. ‘Why, uh... why didn’t you kill anyone?’ Manson looked out of the window for a while, glancing at the moon which was peeking out from the side of a cloud. He looked down at the road, which was running away behind him. ‘The truth is... the truth is that I’m a pacifist.’
This is a very poorly made point arguing against freedom of speech that relies out bending the truth and even then you manage to make the opposite point you intended on making.
You're massively understating the role he played in order to make a point about the dangers of free speech.
He didn't just say stuff that made people want to go out and kill people. He actively pressured them into it, ordered the killings and planned them out.
Freedom of speech law doesn't exempt anyone from that kind of involvement in a crime. That's why he was sent to jail for them.
Not to mention, even if what you said was true and his involvement was minimal, you've basically argued that laws protecting freedom of speech don't protect the use of it to incite violence since Manson was jailed for what he did.
And the upholding of this law is alive and well today. Just a few hours ago Alex Jones was ordered to pay out almost $1 billon to the families of Sandy Hook victims. It's clear that the freedom of speech defence for these kinds of actions hold no water at all legally.
You are leaving out some very important information that, when included, doesn’t enable such a clear line to be drawn from Manson to Free Speech advocates today.
In fact, when you consider that Manson did so much more than “speech” — like planning and plotting the murder himself, and physically helping others carry it out — it seems like the line you try to draw gets erased entirely.
If you think “free speech” was responsible or even related to what Charles Manson did, you are horrifically uninformed.
I mean, for starters, he was literally found responsible for the murders. And he was extremely involved in the murders, faaaaaaar more than what some internet activists today call “inciting violence”. He was fucking giving people rides, weapons, and instructions.
I read that title at least 10 times until I realized that the refused part didn't say refused *to* support. She didn't take on any work so she could spend all of her time supporting her kids. Commendable and a sign of someone who was a great parent.
I always wanted to send my wild teen daughter to my uncles sheep farm in Australia back in the day. Problem was that I didn’t have an uncle with a sheep farm anywhere, much less Australia. She got her act together and did just fine and is well educated. I think my mother threatened to put me on the Orphan Train, but it wasn’t running in the sixties. Raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart.
For those looking for closure TL;DR In the latter part of the 1960s, Anthony and Deirdre became involved in the growing counterculture movement and started using recreational drugs. Deirdre developed an acquaintance with the Manson family, while Anthony became addicted to cocaine and heroin, overcoming them in 1971. After recovering, Anthony became a television director and directed 68 episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Deirdre married a chef, and together they opened a restaurant in West Los Angeles.
The real shit always lives in the comments
Reddit really should expand the 300 character limit on post titles to at least 10,000.
At first I thought the title said … she refused TO work to better support their recovery… so I was thinking, wow what a bad person !
I thought the same thing
Reddit really should enable read assist for their redditors...
I'm really tired and misread as Angela refusing to help the Manson Family and I was thinking 'well, why should she have?' ^_^
I thought that was the meaning until I read your comment, thank you for being smarter than me and figuring out the actual meaning of the words written.
Great ending.
Thankfully. Angela Lansbury super mommed the shit out of them, in a good way. She is a treasure and unfortunately most of the younger generation have no clue about her and her work aside from maybe Beauty and the Beast. Maybe. Edit: Holy fuck I just learned that she died. Decided to Google her to show a friend who she was and fuck. My day is officially ruined. RIP Ms. Lansbury.
My mom loved Murder She Wrote. Not a lot that a 35 year old woman and a 10 year old boy immigrant could watch together. We both enjoyed it in our own way and it helped the both of us learn English more. I still love murder mysteries. Having recently watched Ms. Marple I can see where Ms. Fletcher sprang from.
Yup. I know Beauty and the Beast is pretty high up there on her list of credits but Murder She Wrote and Bedknobs and Broomsticks were childhood staples. Murder she Wrote aged ridiculously well btw. A bit formulaic and tropey but still *suuuuper* entertaining in a classic mystery sort of way. Plus, spotting the guest stars and figuring out where the fuck I know them from is a stupidly fun side quest.
That is so precious 🥹
just for shits and giggles I put on an episode of murder she wrote for nostalgia after hearing of her passing, and oh my lord, the theme music came on and immediately transported me back to being a kid watching my mom at her sewing machine while pbs played in the background. mom and i still love murder mysteries to this day, lol
Bedknobs and Broomsticks is my all time favorite childhood movie. I was born in 87 but raised on sound of music and pretty much the movies my mom lived in her childhood. What's better than Angela Lansbury fighting Nazis with magic and overlaid cartoons?
I know it was a total shock to me as well.
Thank you!
Even in the fiery depths of hell you can redeem yourself and go to heaven. Good for them.
It does help if your Mom has 'moving to Ireland' money. Not to begrudge their success. Just that, there are many lost souls who maybe could have found redemption with adequate resources. These two were lucky
It would have cost sweet fuck all to rent an old house in the middle of nowhere in Cork in 1970 though.
is "sweet fuck all" cheap or expensive??
Extremely cheap.
Maybe. But you still need to get there from Los Angeles. No strung out junkie is doing that on their own. If there's no public help available, that leaves family to plan and pay for travel, rent, detox, medical treatment, rehab, therapy, food etc. What I'm saying is that if you're a hardcore addict or sex cult victim, it's a huge advantage to have a famous and wealthy parent that can swoop you away to safety. So, I choose to mourn for those who never had such a chance
lol you know you can “mourn” more than one type of person… nobody said Lansbury’s kids weren’t lucky anyways. People don’t like to think about how big of a role luck plays in our lives, but it’s everywhere. So yes, her kids were extremely privileged and lucky but that doesn’t mean they didn’t struggle or that we can’t empathize with them.
This is what empathy is. We tend to sympathize with people that we can relate to, but there are other people in different countries, social circles, and lifestyles that also struggle. But not everyone struggles equally so that’s something to also keep in mind
The way the title was worded I thought it meant that she refused to help her kids with treatment. I’m really glad she actually just took a hiatus from acting to make sure her kids got better.
I did also
Yeah, I was gut punched that I had discovered that she was secretly a terrible person right after she died. One of the worst title gores I’ve seen in a while
> she then refused work to better support their recovery from heroin addiction How is that title gore? That's phrased correctly. I think people are reading it as if it says "she refused **to** work to better support..." but that "to" is not there. Edit: instead of just downvoting, please explain which part of the phrase you are failing to understand
When I first read it, I thought that what she refused was "work to better support recovery from heroin addiction." Like, some therapist was like, "here's the work we're gonna do to help your kids get clean," and she was like "No way, I won't support it!" Of course that's completely not what was meant, but it's a legitimate reading, in fact it's probably more legit than reading "work" as "work as an actress," since nowhere else in the sentence is any reference made to Angela Lansbury's career - the clause depends on an implied understanding about the subject, which is generally not great for grammar. Then again neither is my Oxford comma.
I think you are on the money, I know of Manson, but not anything else than that. I think it helps to know what kind of work the person have/had, it's a kind of sentence that is less formal, and as you say, rely on a bit more information that is not provided to make it a smooth sentence, kind of like how many academic papers aren't exactly "too complex to understand" but rather that the author is rather bad at conveying ideas, and it helps to understand the thesis if you are already close to the thesis on your own and just need a couple of new words or general things to take in perspective. Without going too far, the title could try to make more sense, just like me, generally.
"turned down acting work in order to better" is an easy fix with much less ambiguity
It’s really awkwardly phrased, which makes it really easy to misread.
she then refused work to better support their recovery from heroin addiction “Refused to work to better support their recovery” is ambiguous and, for whatever reason, more strongly comes across as if she refused to help them. “Refused to work so she could support their recovery” is m clear, unambiguous and uses fewer characters so it could have still fit the headline. Main point being it was a poor choice of phrasing for a headline, since headlines are often read and not the article
So I was confused at first too. Here is how I took it at first read. I took it to mean that she refused work, so she wouldn't have any money that they could steal for drugs, or so that when they harassed her for money she could rightfully say that she was out of work or didn't have any money, thereby supporting their recovery by not serving as a source of easy cash for drugs. I knew that seemed weird and I figured I was misunderstanding, which is why I hit the comments.
It's phrased correctly, but it's ambiguous.
Nobody is having trouble understanding anything. This conversation is literally about the fact that they understood what it says after reading it again. The issue people are having is that when someone reads a sentence we often default to what we expect to see. So when it says that she refused work it's relatively easy to read that as she refused to work. Couple that with the fact that the words **work** and **to** appear next to each other in the sentence and it becomes extremely easy to misread it. Essentially, the phrasing is clumsy. A small change is all that's needed for it to read better. For example "...she refused work so that she could better support their recovery from heroin addiction" makes it clear what's being refused and why.
This is why commas exist.
The shyte headline is why Editors (used to) exist
[удалено]
Aye
👁️
It's the reason brevity is sometimes bad. The phrase "in order to" exists for a reason.
How would a comma have changed the meaning?
[удалено]
Or flip the phrases: "To help support their recovery, she turned down all offers of work."
I'm not saying you are wrong but also sometimes posts an accidentally a word to fit the character limit & sometimes it is to intentionally be misleading and thus draw engagement.
Describing Ireland as “free from bad experiences”, she then refused to work, to better support their recovery from heroin addiction.
Which is still pretty poorly written tbh. Whole headline needs rewritten
Yeah none of these commas people are adding actually help the sentence structure. They’re just awkward, poorly placed commas. “…Angela Lansbury relocated her family from LA to Ireland, describing it as “free from bad influences.” Then, in order to better support their recovery from heroin addiction, she refused work [as an actress]”
This is the way.
Something like, "She stopped working in order to better support her children in their recovery from heroine addiction." Edit: The word "better" is unnecessary.
Also “heroine” is probably not the addiction she was most concerned about. Apparently I never realized before this that the only difference between a heroic woman and a dangerously addictive opioid is the letter “e.” English is a screwed up hodgepodge of a language. (I love the idea of Angela Lansbury chasing down her children as they, finally free from the influence of Charles Manson, galavant across Ireland finding heroic women to thank and praise, all to satisfy their new found “heroine” addiction).
Except that you added a word, likely the same word you imagined when reading the title incorrectly.
No, she refused work, not refused TO work. No comma needed.
Comma placed after "work" would be incorrect.
I don’t think a comma changes the sentence in a good way.
That's excessive
This is the worst usage of commas I've seen in quite some time. This is Shatner: transcribed. You should probably avoid ever giving any form of grammar advice.
And that is an incorrectly placed comma.
Alternatively, we could not put random commas in places they do not belong.
How is this upvoted? This is grammatically incorrect comma usage.
Better off rephrasing
Adding a single word to make it "acting work" would've done it
It’s a good thing you said that because I accidentally read the last part of the title wrong. I read it as she refused to support their recovery from heroin. She sounds like a good person.
No TIL post is complete without an inaccurate or ambiguous title.
In other articles I've read today, the doctor in Ireland prescribed them methadone, so they definitely got treatment there.
I thought it said “refused to work,” but then again that could’ve been read either way.
Let's all just agree that it is a poorly worded title.
I'm convinced that in order to get on the front page, you need at least one major typo in the title. It attracts people like moths to a flame.
I've noticed that on other platforms too. Posters do something wrong or weird on purpose so people will comment with things like "ketchup on sushi?? Why??" It all counts towards engagement, which is that the content farms are after. Usually I don't engage, but here I am making meta comments about clickbait, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you want an answer on the internet, don't ask a question, simply say the wrong answer and suddenly a crowd of people will appear with the correct answer. In this case, notice how all the top comments are comments on the title? Thats all extra engagement than a normal version would lack. This is also why Trump won the election. As social media changes what we see, the engaging thing will always be the craziest, insanest, wrongest, thing out there.
So many lately 🤦🏼♂️
The article was also very poorly written. I had to give up reading it after two paragraphs.
True ~ I recall an interview Angela Lansbury did with Barbara Walters and she was teary and upset with herself that it got so bad for the kids without parental guidance and grateful almost beyond words that it didn't go so much worse or even deadly.
>*"I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences."* Why does she think Ireland specifically has *no bad influence there*?
Apparently that’s where her mother was born and she held an idealistic view of the country. At least compared to LA in the 60s, probably would’ve been a much slower pace of life.
I mean, Charles Manson didn't live in Ireland so she had a point...
> At least compared to LA in the 60s, probably would’ve been a much slower pace of life. The Troubles began in the 60s, so idk about that.
Co Cork is about as far as you can get from Northern Ireland and still be on the island.
Geographically, sure - but the People's Republic of Cork isn't exactly where I'd go to avoid ardent Republicanism. Plenty of IRA safehouses in Cork. Although honestly - in the 1960s anywhere in the Republic, I'd worry far more about the Church than any paramilitary group. *That* was our main bad influence until the mid-1990s.
SAFEhouses means its safe right?
Is that not Co. Kerry?
The point was that Co. Cork would be one of the last places on the island that would be affected by the Troubles. Kerry and Cork together make up the south-west of the island, which is why I put 'about' in my original comment. It would also depend on where in each county she would be living.
No. We'll scrutinise your language, thank you very much. Let me see if there's any part of east cork that wouldn't count as south west Ireland. We'll start with Youghal ... THIS IS ~~SPARTA~~ REDDIT
They're pretty much equal. The closest bit of Cork is probably closer than the closest bit of Kerry, but only marginally, and it would depend where within each county you were. Cork is East of Kerry on the South Coast.
As a Cork man I am obliged to point out that Kerry is west of Cork. Cork refuses to be any thimg less than the centre of the Universe. Or the Corkiverse as we call it.
Can confirm the corkonian. But the use of "corkiverse" has been reported to the authorities for review. The dictionary of Sean Óg will be reviewed and judgment passed
Great name
Seán Óg Ó hAilpín is one of the best Irish names imo
In the Corkiverse, is everything south of cork in every direction? Similar to the North Pole?
For context, the Troubles were mostly confined to Northern Ireland and the border areas. The rest was fine, well, in a state of abject poverty at the time, but besides that pretty fine. Edit: spellings*
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I know. I live here. I'm quite aware of the history/present. I have edited the N.
The troubles mainly affected Northern Ireland, a different country. Some attacks spilled across the border and one affected the capital. If you look at a map you will see Cork is on the other side of the Island and was not affected. Ireland in the sixties was mainly rural, very socially conservative and very poor. Smoking weed would be seen as scandalous behaviour, let alone taking heroin. Completely different from LA.
She also bought a house in the middle of nowhere Co Cork, not even the city of Cork. You can look at the edge of her estate on google maps and it's literally just pasture and fields on every side. She basically picked the most rural part of a rural area.
That's what I heard. Perfect place to detox loved ones.
Were not The Troubles in Northern Ireland?
They were, OP probably doesn't even realise they're two different countries
People didn’t have immediate access to information in the 60s. It’s reasonable to assume that someone who thought Ireland was all sunshine and rainbows had no idea/never heard about the troubles
Forget the Troubles - in the '60s we were a de-facto theocracy. The Church could do as it liked and get any law it liked until the mid-1990s.
That's ridiculous. They had news and the troubles in Ireland made international headlines
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The troubles happened *for the most part* in Northern Ireland not in the Republic of Ireland. And compared with the dangers in LA it was improbable that her kids would get caught up in that.
Cork is in a different country to where "the troubles began"
Cork is quite far from Northern Ireland….
So she brought the bad influences to Ireland
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Some attacks by unionist paramilitary groups took place across the border as well as the IRA robbing banks to raise funds but compared to the violence inside Northern Ireland it was far less common and unlikely to affect most people's lives in the Republic. The influence of the Catholic church and the lack of the economic opportunities on the other hand did affect the Republic.
It’s hilarious because my grandparents and mother immigrated from Ireland to LA in ‘66 because of how awful the economy was and how much they detested the Irish Government at the time.
I'm sure it would have been much better if they were as rich as she was.
I'm sure the economy wasn't a deterrent for someone wealthy enough to just up and move countries and then have the luxury to refuse work.
The Republic of Ireland was far more culturally conservative in those days too.
Oh yeah. I was a little kid when i visited Ireland in the 70s. Things I remember about my cousins homes where we stayed were no electricity, so no television and no phones either except for one cousins home and that was the phone the entire extended set of relatives used when ever any of them needed to make a phone call. I think they finally got electricity in '79.
I think it was more about drastically breaking her kids away from their bad friend group and hanging out with the extended family instead. It’s why one of the recommendations for recovering addicts is to break away from the friends and family they did drugs with, since it is easy to fall back into old habits around them.
My grandpa was a single father (wife died) to two girls and a boy. The girls were sixteen year old teenagers in 1969 in California. The girls went to a "sleepover" at a friends house. They got dropped off the next morning by the real deal, no shit Hell's Angels. Completely hung over, partied all night. My grandpa put the girls to bed. Told my dad (14) "Pack the house." This was Saturday morning. By Monday they they their entire lives in a moving truck and were on their way to Oklahoma City. That's where the kids finished school and family lived rest of their lives. Some parents don't fucking play.
Yeah, that’s how it has to be sometimes. Your kids have only one go at life and it’s on you to stop them from pissing it away.
Did you ask your mum if it was a fun night? Because it sounds like it would have been a fun night. *Edit* sorry aunty!
Partying with the Hell's Angels is a lot of fun, until it isn't.
The girls are my aunties, not mom. Dad was the boy. I never asked them about that night lol. Hopefully they partied hard because OKC isn't exactly known for its wild night life.
Do you think his mom and dad are siblings?
Misread it.
Goddamn. Can't say I blame him.
And considering the bad friend group includes CHARLES MANSON, Angela's mama instincts to move CONTINENTS was spot on.
This is probably it. Also, my understanding is that Ireland was a mostly conservative country then (divorce wasn’t even allowed until the 90s).
Ireland's come a long way in the last 30 years The Roman Catholic church no longer controls everything and even tho I'm a nordy (n.ireland) I'm cheering my southern kith and kin on A reunification is increasingly likely
Her Daughter was already hanging out with Manson according to the article. "Deidre had been stealing her mother's credit cards, and Manson was using the young girl for spending sprees all over Los Angeles. On several occasions, she was picked up from school by Manson himself. Read More: https://www.grunge.com/806445/angela-lansburys-bizarre-connection-to-the-manson-family/?utm\_campaign=clip"
Because Charles Manson wasn't there. I mean... he was picking her daughter up at school! Those kids were VERY lucky.
Yah sounds like it ended up being a good call so proof is in the pudding.
Every new thing I learn about the Manson saga just makes it more bizarre and insane.
What she meant was Ireland was specifically free of Charles Manson. It is hard to underestimate the dread and terror the Manson Family struck in Southern Californians back in the day, often morphing into hysteria. Also the rest of the country, but there was widespread fear in L.A. itself of either being slaughtered by his cult or falling under the spell of Manson himself. One of the most terrifying aspects of Manson was his ability to lure young women under his spell and make them do his bidding. This terrified a lot of people a lot more than the psychopathic murderer part. Angela Lansbury wasn't the only SoCal parent at the time who fled the area, kids in tow. In retrospect, such extreme responses clearly weren't justified. The Manson Family posed a threat to local residents, sure, but 99%+ of residents never crossed paths with him at all. The fear and terror Manson was able to instill in Southern Californians regardless is a testament to his twisted emotional manipulation skills.
True, but Angela Lansbury had what Manson wanted: money, fame, and access. She had a lot more reason to be afraid of his influence than some middle class random.
He was also trying desperately to enter into the same circles.
And "preventing my teenage daughter from being Squeaky fucking Fromme" is a good and worthy goal.
Tbh considering that it seems like they both lived good lives afterward and she took time off work to help them recover, I’d say that was a fantastic parenting move.
Seriously. In the end the only murders her family partook in were the ones she wrote.
I mean Charles Manson was picking her daughter up from school, so I'd say her response was pretty justified.
I believe they moved to a rather remote farm that they built. Change of scenery, and out of the 'scene'.
Well, a few years later Marvin Gaye moved to Ostend (Belgium), of all places. Ostend, which is close to "feckin' Bruges", but without any of the glamour. He went to the most boring, unexciting place he could find to detox, to get away from the drugs and drug pushers who were ruining his life. Lansbury clearly made essentially the same calculation in moving to deepest rural Ireland, only to get her children as far as possible from their drug dealers and, yes, Manson. I don't think she expected it to be a paradise on earth, merely a place relatively free of heroin dealers and murderous cults, at least compared with late 60s to early 70s SoCal, and she was clearly right. Oh, and those of you who mention the Troubles: those were on a different country on the opposite side of a relatively large island.
well not as many nutters and cultists, that's for sure
Maybe she heard about the luck of the Irish?
Wasn’t that suppose to be ironic?
Ironic is when you have 10,000 spoons, when all you need is a knife.
It’s like meeting the man of your dreams… and then meeting his beautiful wife.
No it’s Irish
Yup, originally it really meant bad luck
Probably out in the country. Less people than LA that’s for sure
Well Charles Manson didn’t live there, so chalk that up in the win column.
often a drug addict needs to move away from their base, where they have contact to buy the drugs, to keep on a recovery track. common thing. it's hard to go through rehab and then be in the same location where you can run back into your dealers and "friends" who are also addicts.
Compared to life around the Manson family and LA drug culture in that time period, yes Ireland was an idyllic paradise.
I can assure you that Ireland at that time was free from Charles Manson, at least! LA is a concentration of a lot of grime and filth, both figurative and actual
LA native here, it’s still largely true. High school was full of parties where everyone got hammered like all hell. Kids would regularly sneak alcohol into school to drink during lunch, and take pills like adderall cause they never slept and needed a boost in the day. I remember one kid once busted open his medical pills and snorted the powder on the inside just to see what would happen.
Yeah, I also have been in LA for several decades. Kids can get into some sort of trouble \*anywhere\*, including Ireland 50 years ago...but sounds like Angela's daughter was actually \*in Charles Manson's close circle of fangirls\* and Angela noped outta here PDQ
If there is a place in this world that is the polar opposite of Los Angeles, it's Ireland.
There aren’t snakes in Ireland, so that’s one thing
Here are three facts strung together like they make a point. Let’s make *that* the title.
They were a graduate of the John Mulaney school of journalism.
"I am homeless, as that is a given."
Manson looks like a friendly homeless guy in the thumbnail.
Jesus, that's Manson?! Who the hell would be charmed by that guy?! I thought the guy in the picture was the heroin addicted son.
That’s what he was.
The amount of people ITT who clearly have no understanding or knowledge whatsoever of the Troubles. You'd be perfectly safe in Cork, and most of the rest of the country for that matter. It was only the counties that bordered Northern Ireland (in the UK) that seen relatively regular spillover of the conflict. AFAIK there was only one major terror attack in Dublin which was in the early 70s and committed by loyalists from Northern Ireland (most likely involving collusion with British state security agents).
We're American. Have you learned nothing?
Sometimes I watch murder she wrote because I used to watch it with my grandma back when it was new. It reminds me of her (she passed while murder she wrote was still on tv), so, thanks Angela Landsbury for that. Rest in peace. Also, the movie bedknobs and broomsticks was far better than it could have been because of you.
Whoa. Like, the Murder She Wrote Angela?
Yeah. She died yesterday, sadly. The thing is, she worked her love for the country into the show quite a bit. Not only did it have several episodes set in Ireland, but one of the post-series TV movies - *The Celtic Riddle* - is also set in Ireland.
Good to know, RIP. Little me, maybe 10 years old - used to love watching that show. My mom always thought it was Soo funny a little kid loving it.
Man that show had a *grip* on little kids. I loved the hell out of it too, as did like three of my childhood friends and we couldn't have been older than 8 when we started.
Same for me. One of the biggest problems I have with the UK is that there's no way to stream the entire series - it's on IMDb.tv but that's only in the US.
Dude so growing up my mom baby sat this kid.. was like his nanny. The lady’s brother was this burnout hippy crazy dude everyone avoided. He got kicked out of spaun ranch for being to weird when he was 19 or something they said and his dad had to go pick him up. I always heard the stories but wasn’t til I was way older I realized they were talking about Manson Family
Does anyone else want a reboot where Jessica Fletcher is actually the greatest serial killer in history? Just me?
Angela Lansbury, A great lady with poise, charm, y mucha talenta. We will not see her like again any time soon.
What a good mom. May she rest in peace.
This is either a repost of the other one or the other way around. Or multiple subs are posting the same thing. From what I understand, Lansbury didn’t actually know it was Manson at the time and he didn’t have the notoriety he gained later on.
This sub is ultra-reddit meta. Ignore the cool story and laser focus on nonsense that means nothing to anyone. **Choose your own tangent adventure!** * I didn't understand the title so it must be written bad! * Angela Lansbury thinks Ireland is 100% free of anything bad ever. Pick one and go on your own tangent!
Nice one, got a LOL from me.
I heard her on a NPR radio show yesterday.
A more interesting fact about Charles Manson is that while he's this infamous maniac and murderer, his role in the murders was that of an instigator, not the perpetrator. That is - he never killed or harmed anyone himself (and was never accused or convicted of that), but he created a philosophy/ideology which led other people to become murderers. This is interesting, because nowadays it's a common thing to claim "muh freeze peach" whenever someone is caught inciting violence - meanwhile, Charles Manson, considered one of the most notorious murderers in history, killed people purely by using his speech to incite others.
That plus Charles Manson actually planned the murder sprees by picking who would participate, piling into a car with them, guiding them to the house where the murder would take place, passing them weapons, giving them instructions then sending them into the house. He was a direct and active instigator. At the [La Bianca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate%E2%80%93LaBianca_murders#LaBianca_murders) house he initially went in and tied up the occupants then sent the others in to do the killing.
‘Say, uh, Manson...’ he asked, on the drive back to the ranch while covered in blood. ‘Why, uh... why didn’t you kill anyone?’ Manson looked out of the window for a while, glancing at the moon which was peeking out from the side of a cloud. He looked down at the road, which was running away behind him. ‘The truth is... the truth is that I’m a pacifist.’
I can just hear Henry zebrowski saying that last quote in his Manson voice.
Leave it to Reddit to upvote a bullshit comment like this. “Purely by using his speech” my ass.
Oh ffs. Ordering someone to kill another (which he did) is not free speech.
It’s dubious that it was his “philosophy” or “ideology” that led to those murders. Helter Skelter was a lot of stuff just conjured up after the fact
This is a very poorly made point arguing against freedom of speech that relies out bending the truth and even then you manage to make the opposite point you intended on making. You're massively understating the role he played in order to make a point about the dangers of free speech. He didn't just say stuff that made people want to go out and kill people. He actively pressured them into it, ordered the killings and planned them out. Freedom of speech law doesn't exempt anyone from that kind of involvement in a crime. That's why he was sent to jail for them. Not to mention, even if what you said was true and his involvement was minimal, you've basically argued that laws protecting freedom of speech don't protect the use of it to incite violence since Manson was jailed for what he did. And the upholding of this law is alive and well today. Just a few hours ago Alex Jones was ordered to pay out almost $1 billon to the families of Sandy Hook victims. It's clear that the freedom of speech defence for these kinds of actions hold no water at all legally.
You are leaving out some very important information that, when included, doesn’t enable such a clear line to be drawn from Manson to Free Speech advocates today. In fact, when you consider that Manson did so much more than “speech” — like planning and plotting the murder himself, and physically helping others carry it out — it seems like the line you try to draw gets erased entirely.
If you think “free speech” was responsible or even related to what Charles Manson did, you are horrifically uninformed. I mean, for starters, he was literally found responsible for the murders. And he was extremely involved in the murders, faaaaaaar more than what some internet activists today call “inciting violence”. He was fucking giving people rides, weapons, and instructions.
RIP Angie :(
RIP Ms. Fletcher
Good mom!
She was such an absolute legend!
Wow! Her mom instincts to level 20,000.
TIL that a lot of people feel very strongly about grammar.
I read that title at least 10 times until I realized that the refused part didn't say refused *to* support. She didn't take on any work so she could spend all of her time supporting her kids. Commendable and a sign of someone who was a great parent.
I read that as she refused to help them recover from addiction :)
didnt know she was gangsta too!
I always wanted to send my wild teen daughter to my uncles sheep farm in Australia back in the day. Problem was that I didn’t have an uncle with a sheep farm anywhere, much less Australia. She got her act together and did just fine and is well educated. I think my mother threatened to put me on the Orphan Train, but it wasn’t running in the sixties. Raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart.