The loss of the 12-year-old girl in a fire in Smithfield is certainly tragic. Also disturbing to me was your publication's repeated use of the word "trailer" to describe the victim's home.
Why is it that whenever something unfortunate occurs in a mobile home community, members of the local and national press choose to call the homes "trailers" and the communities "trailer parks"?
Those words have long been held in disdain, and rightly so, by the people who live there. Their homes are homes just like yours and mine. They are not any less worthy of being called homes because they are manufactured. I suggest that trailers be called "homes" and parks be called "neighborhoods."
Cyndi Bemis
Sandy