The reporter met what the headline writer called "lost children". Luckily, he had a map and a compass.
Of course, "wild, unwanted and utterly without fear" is a bit of a mouthful.
So the reporter quickly began to use the shorthand term "feral children". No fewer than eight times in one article. Feral, for those who haven't studied these things, is a term often used to describe once-domesticated animals, such as dogs or cats, who somehow now live in the wild. They are thought of as particularly dangerous and unpredictable, being neither properly wild nor tamed. Sometimes the word is used just to mean wild, brutal or animal-like. It is always a derogatory remark.
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