70代ぐらい

[katafei]

http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/ ... 09825.html

Is this a different way of saying 'about 42 years old'? :

栃木・益子町で19日朝、男性2人が住宅の庭先で倒れているのを新聞配達の男性が発見した。1人は死亡し、もう1人はその後、行方がわからなくなっている。
近くの住民は「妹さんが言うには、新聞屋さんが行った時に2人がいて、横たわった方が足を縄で縛られていた」と話した。
19日午前5時ごろ、栃木・益子町の上野 忠(きよし)さん(60)宅の庭で、上野さんが70代ぐらい男性の足首を縄で縛っているところを、新聞配達の男性が発見した。
新聞配達員は、近所に住む上野さんの親戚を呼ぶために庭を離れて戻ってきたところ、上野さんは頭を打って倒れていて、搬送先の病院で死亡した。
足首を縛られていた男性は、行方不明となっていて、警察は何らかの事情を知っているとみて行方を捜している。

[Hyperworm]

Puzzled a bit over where 42 came from... 1970, right ^^
Actually, it's not related to the current year.

７０代 means "in (her) 70s". See sense 2 of 代 here.

Curiously, Daijisen/Daijirin don't make any reference to 10-year blocks, merely saying it specifies an "approximate range"...

The identically-pronounced kanji 台 also has a similar use for indicating a range (sense 3).
I think the difference is that 代 can only apply to ages.

[katafei]

hmmm. I guess I was hoping for the other option, as I find 2 70-y-o men tied together by the ankles quite sad.....or do I misunderstand the article...???

[NileCat]

Well, katafei, this article is actually weird. I guess the editor was too busy.
The following is what happened.

In the morning, what the newspaper delivery person witnessed in the first place was that Ueno-san was tying up the ankles of a man in his 70s-ish who was lying on the ground. Then the newspaper delivery person left the scene in order to call someone. When he returned, what he saw was that Ueno-san was lying on the ground alone. Ueno-san died at hospital, and the man who had been tied his ancles is missing.

Grammatically obvious error is 70代ぐらいの男性.
Semantically obvious error is 男性2人が住宅の庭先で倒れているのを新聞配達の男性が発見した (Although each of the two men was witnessed lying on the ground, not at the same time)

[Hyperworm]

I thought this was poorly written ._.
I couldn't figure out why it was described that the two men were lying down at the same time...

(Incidentally, the missing の is present in the audio/video.)

[katafei]

ah, okay, thanks for clearing that up!
It's still a disturbing article, though....