The Pitters' Place

Reading an article about an actor for the new trilogy there was a paragraph about his parents and their professions:

Boyega was born to Nigerian parents and raised in southeast London. He revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that his father is a Pentecostal minister, while his mother "takes care of disabled people" and that he has two older sisters, Grace and Blessing.

Can someone tell me why what the mother does is noted with quotation marks?

Sounds like "taking care of" you know. Like "taking care of" a problem. You know what I mean?

Maybe that's what she does?

Maybe because it's not a job title? IDK. Like, I'm a project manager but when I tell people that, they don't know what I mean by it, so I tend to say 'I do admin stuff'. And 'admin stuff' is not a job title, so I'd be cool if someone was like 'Aels' dad is an accountant, while Aels 'does admin stuff''.

aels wrote:Maybe because it's not a job title? IDK. Like, I'm a project manager but when I tell people that, they don't know what I mean by it, so I tend to say 'I do admin stuff'. And 'admin stuff' is not a job title, so I'd be cool if someone was like 'Aels' dad is an accountant, while Aels 'does admin stuff''.

I largely agree with Aels here. I'm sure nothing pejorative was intended.

I read it like they asked someone what his mother did, and they were told 'takes care of disabled people'. So that's just them putting out that information the way it was given. They don't know the exact role so they're having to use a vague description.

aels wrote:Maybe because it's not a job title? IDK. Like, I'm a project manager but when I tell people that, they don't know what I mean by it, so I tend to say 'I do admin stuff'. And 'admin stuff' is not a job title, so I'd be cool if someone was like 'Aels' dad is an accountant, while Aels 'does admin stuff''.

It's called nurses.

You can care for disabled people and not be legally or actually a nurse. You can be a care assistant or a support worker or a social worker or any number of things.

Lets not confuse the watermelon with fancy terms and words.

My point is, if you don't know exactly what someone's job is, it's probably better to give a vague estimation of what they do in quote marks than pick a job title and get it wrong.

I guess. I'd still call them nurses though because anyone can be a nurse.

Perhaps the article was actually quoting Boyega from the interview.

If they were quoting him why isn't his father's profession in quotation marks? I don't know. Probably nothing but it just rings wrong in my head.

Because pentecostal minister is a job title. Taking care of disabled people isn't a job title.

The interview is here.
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/26/st ... abffabd6ff

And yes, the "takes care of disabled people" is a direct quote from the actor, so it is correct to put it in quotation marks.