A word that needs to be left behind

On the CNN front page today there was an article-teaser I object to:



Coed? What is this, the 1970's? To their credit the actual article is titled, "Underwear left near body, possibly a taunt to police," which is much more acceptable. But, coed?

"Coed" is short for "Co-educational". It came into use to describe students of the opposite gender being educated along side the traditional gender at institutions of higher ed that formerly were single-gender only. As the prevalence of all-male colleges were much higher than the all-female variety, 'coed,' came to be synonymous with "college-aged female".

I object to 'coed' as a synonym of woman. Its use as a descriptor of a place of education is much more acceptable; for instance, the US military academies went co-ed in 1976. When used as a proxy for 'woman' it implies that women in higher education are something to be noted, as if they didn't belong there until recently. It is a form of condescension, and should be scrubbed from common usage. I would be very happy if I never saw it used by a news outlet ever again.

Update: It would seem on first glance that CNN may have caught some flack about it. Right now it shows:



However, the title of the article is now, "Underwear found near co-ed's body possibly left to taunt police."

Sigh