Category Archives: News

His line in the sand

Posted on by

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

    Posted on by

    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

    Posted on by

    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.

    • My favorite train wreck tale

    Posted on by

    From Tom Barber:

    Ever notice that when a tornado strikes, “tossing mobile homes
    about like children’s toys,” a witness inevitably is able to
    buttonhole a wire service reporter within moments of emerging from
    his storm cellar to announce, “It sounded like a freight train!”

    My freight train file was swelling impressively when a prized catch
    came in an AP second lede writethru from Motley, Minn., where a bumbling
    dispatcher had sent two Burlington Northern coal trains down the same
    track to a head-on crash 200 yards from Andrew Paife’s home. “Paife
    captured the moment for reporter Karren Mills, volunteering:

    ‘It sounded like a tornado.’ “

    Scrambling on the battle lines

    Posted on by

    From Ian Trontz:

  • “Battle lines were drawn” to describe any controversy
    (sometimes preceded by “Tempers flared”).
  • “Where (insert dominant local livestock here)
    outnumber humans” to describe any rural area.
  • “Scrambling.” About half the nation’s newspapers
    must have run stories following the aborted American Airlines strike
    that read, “leaving the airline scrambling.” That would
    cause a disaster the likes of which the NTSB has never seen. The word
    never again should appear outside of a football story.

    • Now, maverick

    Posted on by

    From Mordecai Specktor:

  • There’s the frequently used description of Ross Perot as a “maverick
    billionaire    .” (Maybe this is more an oxymoron than a cliche).
  • “At this point in time,” which means “now,”
    has come into the lexicon.

    • Rocking, rolling

    Posted on by

    From Keith Ammann:

  • When a recent double bombing at an abortion clinic occurred, I was
    reminded of something about bombs: Bombs ALWAYS “rock”
    their targets. Of the three daily papers in our metro area, ALL THREE
    had some variation of “Two bombs rock abortion clinic.”
    Two ran the AP story, which used the word “rock” in the
    lead, while one ran the Washington Post story, which also used the
    word “rock” in the lead. And the night before, on the local
    news, the anchor woman said that bombers had “hit” an abortion
    clinic -then BACKED UP and CORRECTED herself, using the word “rocked”
    instead.
  • The thing is, you never actually see a building rocking back and
    forth after being bombed. Usually it just sits there, with a big hole
    in it.

    • Dr. Death

    Posted on by

    From Sonya Booth

    My personal favorite, seen in fine newspapers everywhere (including, recently, the Chicago Tribune): Death took no holiday…