Last Saturday’s front-page headline raised quite a few female eyebrows and hackles. The story (based on the first reports from the scene, although a different picture seems now to be emerging) was the massacre at the Texas military base, and the headline read “The mother who brought down the Fort Hood killer”.

Wendy Robinson was among those with concerns: “Could you find out why the word ‘mother’ was used? Would ‘father’ have been used if a man had been involved? If this woman’s child had been involved it might make sense, but it seems to say that once a woman has a child her main role is as a mother, not a person. I’m not usually on side with the die-hard feminists but this raised my hackles, and I’d be interested to hear if The Times has a policy.”

Since the headline had made me uneasy too I disqualified myself from responding, and decided it would be infinitely more useful to ask the man at the sharp end, our chief night editor Simon Pearson, to defend it. He confessed that it had prompted quite a debate on the news desk on Friday night, and went off to marshal his thoughts. Here they are.

“What is more interesting? ‘The police officer who brought down Fort Hood killer’; ‘The woman who brought down Fort Hood killer’; ‘The mother who brought down Fort Hood killer’? I happened to think that a mother was the more interesting — someone who has given life perhaps taking it away — and our job is to make the front page as interesting as possible within the boundaries of truth, relevance and taste. Some of my colleagues thought the use of mother in this context was wrong, and we might well think again, given the reaction, in the same circumstances in future.

“Is her being a mother relevant? Society’s expectation of mothers — sadly often challenged by evidence these days — is of them being nurturers, carers, more empathetic. If anything the headline drew attention to the way in which the story challenged these expectations, so I think it was valid, though perhaps stretching a point.

“I certainly don’t think it was making a judgment on the role of a woman once she becomes a mother. This reader inquired whether The Times would have written ‘father’ had that been the case, and of course the answer is no. But the fact that the officer was a woman bringing down an aggressive man in full flood of violence seems to require extra courage: the likelihood of her overpowering him is so much less, and it is an action that most women would doubt they could attempt.

“The involvement of women in truly violent exchanges still remains unusual, even in military matters, and I thought ‘mother’ emphasised the point. This may well change, and the fact that it was a woman may one day be of no particular interest. We are finding this with abuse cases. Until recently, ‘gender conditioning’ dictated that we never expected to find women involved in cases of paedophilia. The mother in the nursery school abuse case a few weeks ago shocked us all, but the number of examples is increasing.”

Whether you agree with Simon or not, I hope that his thoughtful response persuades the sceptics that the staff of quality newspapers, even when up against the tightest of nightly deadlines and under enormous pressure to hit “send” so that the presses can start rolling, do think about these things.

Unreal estate

Hymie Lipman of Pinner writes: “William Rees-Mogg seemed to suggest (November 9) that ‘real’ estate was an indicator of such estate’s solidity or store of value. Is not the ‘real’ of Spanish derivation relating to royal, based on the time when all land was owned by the monarch? Examples of such use can be found in Camino Real, the King’s Road of California (not Chelsea!), and, in football, Real Madrid.”

Nope — and it’s not an Americanism either. My big Oxford dictionary supports Rees-Mogg. Real as in real estate is Late Middle English (mid-14th to mid-15th centuries) from the Latin res meaning thing, and has a legal connotation: “Consisting of or pertaining to immoveable property such as land or buildings.” Real meaning royal (as in Real Madrid) comes from a different root via Old French.

Simon Batt says: “Your leader (November 6) refers to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy as ‘discutants’ on the subject of the European president. I have looked up this word in three separate versions of the Oxford dictionary and can find no trace. The nearest I get is ‘discussants’. Has the writer made up this word, and is he/she allowed to do that?” Yes, and no, but leader writers being higher up the food chain than Feedback editors, I’m saying nothing.

Another curious case of opposites attracting: Keith Haines, among others, points out that we managed last week to refer to a student who pleaded guilty to outraging public decency as having received “public approbation”, when clearly we meant opprobrium.

In our 100 best films (Review, last Saturday) we rather spoilt the entry for The Queen by referring to Her Majesty as HRH; off with our heads, and not for the first time.

Boot it out

Having tried by herself and failed thus far, Sandra Dunn writes from Cambridge to ask me to do something about a sign in Boots which reads “Buy two and the cheapest is free”. Of course, Ms Dunn — just as soon as we reach that nirvana where there is never a single error in The Times. Or I go to the great spellchecker in the sky. Which is likely to happen sooner.