Monthly Archives: February 2004

Not exactly a day at the beach

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Karl Witter sent this voluminous list of suggestions along:

Banned images:

  • The intrepid reporter standing at a beach’s high-water mark in the onslaught of a hurricane or other coastal storm. I’m waiting to see a wave crashing over the reporter, and, after subsiding, the
    camera op reeling in a snapped cable with no mic or reporter attached.
  • The transitional bantering in which news anchors, meteorologists and sports anchors appear on screen together for several seconds.

    • Banned words (not including spillover from the corporate lexicon):

  • “And you’re not going to believe this…”, “Get
    ready for this…”, or similar, prefacing a TV news story which
    will shock us with needlessly tragic human suffering or bureaucratic
    nincompoopery.
  • “Grow” as a verb done by the subject to the object. One grows neither the economy nor a dog. One can feed a puppy, house-train it, and take it to the vet. Then it grows.
  • “Random violence” isn’t; lightning is. The phrase
    seems to have been invented for contemporary street and blue-collar
    crimes, and gangs. Old-fashioned American shootouts, from the Old
    West to the Roaring Twenties, needed no such distinction for the accidental
    shooting of non-involved bystanders.
  • “The mother of all…” is this decade’s mother
    of all cliches.
  • “Abortion clinic,” “abortion doctor“. Hmm…nobody’s called John Salvi’s victims “abortion receptionists” yet. Hey, I’m just glad the press hasn’t adapted the right-to-lifers’ terminology and started calling women’s health clinics “fetus
    farms”! (Half-kidding but barely.)
  • “xxx-ly correct” when one really means “just
    plain accurate and right.” Included uses of note are geographically
    correct, historically correct, and, the winning stretch-of-phrase,
    orinthologically correct.
  • “Politically correct” applied ex-post-facto to
    anything. Someday a journalist will describe the Underground Railroad,
    the Pure Food and Drug Act, or the Taylor Act as “P.C.”
    Actually, “politically correct” is a “feely” word
    with no definition anymore. Restrain its use to the original higher-education
    meaning and trash it in other arenas.

    • Oscar, meet the grouch

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    In honor of Oscar Night (March 24, 1997), Craig Sonnenberg nominates
    for banishment:

  • “The feel-good movie of the year.”
  • So-and-So…”delivers the performance of his/her career“
  • So-and-So “gives a triumphant performance that is sure to
    be remembered at Oscar time    .”

    • Other banishment nominations:

  • Reporters pronouncing the word “nuclear” as “nucular”
  • “There’s more bad news today for (The White House, O.J.
    Simpson, Timothy McVeigh’s defense team, whoever)…”
  • “The latest (CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, USA Today, NY
    Times, Gallup, etc.) poll is out, and it’s not good news
    for     (President Clinton, Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, The First Lady,
    etc.)

    • Wonk on the head

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    Kim Welch suggests these words/phrases:

  • wonk (as in policy wonk, as in virtually every story on Clinton appointees and hires).
  • mosh pit (enough already).
  • virtually (see above); virtual reality (seriously overused)
  • paradigm shift (gag).

    • His line in the sand

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    Doug Allaire offers these two candidates, mostly heard on
    TV:

  • “So-and-so has drawn a line in the sand.…” I
    think this one started showing up more after George Bush actually
    said it before the Gulf War. Now I can just about hear someone on
    a Sunday morning talkfest saying, “The Republicans have drawn
    a line in the sand on this issue.” It always reminds me of drawing
    lines in the sand at the beach and watching the rising tide wash them
    away. Maybe the phrase isn’t as meaningless as I thought, after all.
  • Using individuals as if they were groups: “The Yankees have
    had a lot of strong players, your Babe Ruths, your Joe DiMaggios, your Mickey Mantles….”

    • Spearheading the blue ribbon commission

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    Ivan Weiss will be glad to celebrate at the wake of these:

  • “In the wake of:” How about “after” or
    “since?”
  • “As many as” when used with a specific number.
    It’s totally meaningless. “About” or “an estimated”
    usually will do.
  • “Spearheaded” for “led”
  • “Underscored“: my pet peeve — It’s muddy. Emphazised,
    pointed out, demonstrated, illustrated, reinforced are all more specific.
  • “Announced” for “said”
  • “Blue-ribbon commission.” Dead on arrival at my
    desk.
  • “A pair of” for the simple “two”
  • “Burgeoning:” Another yuppie trendoid buzzword.
    How about “fast-growing?”
  • “Crafted” for an abstract concept. A wood-carving
    is “crafted.” Legislation is “drafted.”

    • Those crack fielders

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    Matthew Carrick volunteers these annoyances:

  • “Crack” — not the drug but the description, as
    in “The crack SAS/Green Beret unit . . .”
  • “Fielded‘ – Farmers MAY field but anyone else might
    simply answer the question.

    • Lost at sea

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    Max Hughey respectfully submits the following (and cites Willy the
    Shake to prove that he really means it):

    Ban “sea change” until people learn its meaning.
    It does NOT mean a watershed event but, rather, indicates a miraculous
    change into something finer, such as from a grain of sand into a pearl.
    (See Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” Act I, Scene II; Ariel
    sings, “Nothing of him doth fade/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into
    something rich and strange.”) For example, the 1994 Republican
    takeover of Congress was NOT a sea change — unless one is a Republican
    — although I’ve heard it used dozens of times on radio and television.
    One might almost believe that this usage has been orchestrated by
    Newt Gingrich et al.

    Raining 110 percent performers

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    Greg Wait has multiple irritations, probably the direct result of watching
    too many local TV newscasts:

  • One phrase that always bothered me is, “Pouring down rain,” as in, “It was pouring down rain all week.” As opposed to
    what? Molasses? Sprite?
  • A distinction of language that many journalists seem to miss is
    the difference between “less” and “fewer.”
    More and more the word “less” is being used in instances
    where “fewer” is appropriate. The difference is simple —
    if you want less traffic, you need fewer cars.
  • And please, would everyone stop “giving 110%?”
    It’s mathematically impossible, and you’re making the rest of us look
    bad. 100% will be just fine.
  • “In conclusion,” don’t tell me you’re finished,
    just stop talking or writing. I’ll figure it out. And no more “wrapping
    it up    ,” as in, “That just about wraps it up.”
    If I hear that one more time, I’m going to drive down to the local
    station and rap someone upside of his head.

    • Which state, what art?

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    Rory Thompson posits a rave and a challenge:

    I’ve had QUITE ENOUGH of the (un)descriptive phrase, “State
    of the art…    ” I used to relish tearing into lazy reporters
    who tagged the phrase on whenever they had nothing creative to say
    about a new product. Can any of your more seasoned correspondents
    tell me where “state of the art” originated? I need to know
    so I can wave it in contributors’ faces when they try to slink it
    into one of their features pieces.