They feel terrible, OK?

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R. G. Harris of Detroit,
Michigan, read the proceedings below and passed the following along:

I agree especially with the criticism of broadcast journalists
and would add that they should also be forever forbidden from asking
inane questions of crime or disaster victims. Does anyone really doubt
how one feels when they have seen their home destroyed (totally destroyed
to the reporters) by fire, flood, tornado, etc. Or need they ask how
the family of a murder victim feels?Many other words or phrases should be eliminated. Among them:

  • “A real team player;” “Ready to hit the ground running;”
    a “self-starter;” and “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team‘.”
  • We should also stop “doing lunch” and “taking meetings.”
  • As a retired police supervisor, I also have strong negative feelings
    about many cases of “cop-speak.” I once heard an arresting
    officer testify as follows:

    “I observed a male subject exit a red colored vehicle and
    proceed on foot in a westerly direction.”

    Wouldn’t it be easier to see a man get out of a red car and walk
    west? A “red-colored” as opposed to a red-flavored or red-shaped?
    A “westerly direction as opposed to a westerly size?

    • Do we ever sound so stupid as when we try to sound smart?

    Prior restraint

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    Larry Sommers
    of the Public Affairs Office, Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs,
    shares three of his pet peeves:

  • “Prior to” – Military memo writers never say “before” when they can say “prior to.” It’s always something like, “Be sure to move your vehicles from the north parking lot prior to 1600 hours, when
    the night crew will be be plowing.” This manner of writing creeps
    into military journalism, e.g.: “Sgt. Kevlar is seen here polishing
    his boots prior to reporting for duty.”
  • “Tragic death” – On both local and national television,
    and in quite a few newspapers as well, it seems death = tragedy. We
    know, of course, that only a few deaths (Oedipus, Hamlet, Buddy Holly)
    are actually tragic; some deaths (Gauguin, Chuckles the Clown) are
    banal; some (Osama bin Laden, the Crocodile Hunter) might be satisfying;
    and ALL THE REST – roughly 99.9 percent of all human deaths – are
    just deaths, no adjectives need apply.
  • “Yada-yada-yada,” So-and-so added/ noted/ explained/ commented/ remarked/ pointed out. Fortunately, more typical of
    student journalists than of professionals. More than nine times out
    of ten, “said” is the better choice. It is the exception to the rule
    that we should look for more lively verbs. One would usually prefer
    the smack and tang of the quote itself to draw the reader’s attention,
    without being upstaged by some fancy-schmancy verb-of-assertion hovering
    just beyond the quotation marks. Of course, that assumes the writer
    has been able to discover an interesting and relevant quote somewhere
    amid the speaker’s ruminations.

    • Senseless slaughter

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    Jay Kelly wonders:

    Television interviewers, especially Wolfe Blitzer, often ask,
    “What is your sense of the situation?” Or, “What is your
    sense of the problem?”     Wouldn’t it would make more sense to
    ask the the interviewee what he thinks or feels about it, or what
    his reaction or his opinion is?

    You say it’s your anniversary

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    Samantha Lynn declares:

    The thing that’s been driving me most berserk lately about the deteriorating educational level of the talking heads is this sudden habit of saying
    “five-month anniversary” of things. After all, “anniversary”
    is from the root “annum”, meaning YEAR… The only thing that bothers
    me more is when the same idiots compound their stupidity by saying
    “first-year anniversary” of things…

    Almost famous

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    Jon Rathbun lends fame to the following:

    I hate the use of terms like “well-known” or “famous” in celebrity obituaries. When I read the daily deaths on the Associated Press wire I figure that if a famous (fill-in-the-blank) were famous, I would not need to be told of this fame. It seems that including the term is AP’s way of telling you that you have never heard of the deceased.

    Like Abba, only worse

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    Mark R. Yeatts suggests:

    Here are several phrases journalists have used so many times, they
    clang against the ear like a hit song from that Swedish Super-group,
    Abba:

  • Journalism is a “reflection of reality.”
  • Polls described as “a snapshot in time.“
  • Any use of “on a daily basis.”
  • Market drops attributed to “Wall Street jitters.”
  • “The schoolhouse door.”
  • “Women, blacks, and other minorities.”
  • “The children” are ubiquitous though we never hear about “the adults” or “the grownups.”

    • Mexican cast-offs

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    Angelo Young sends these from Mexico:

    I couldn’t find (on the Banned for Life page):

  • “shark-infested waters off the coast of…” or,
  • “comes on the heels of…” or,
  • because I live in Mexico, this one pops up on my radar: “drug
    czar    .” Since he’s fighting drug use, shouldn’t it at least
    be ANTI-drug czar?) or
  • any use of “ubiquitous“

    • And here’s a couple about my current home, Mexico City:

  • Any variation of “the polluted, crowded, crime-ridden metropolis”
    or
  • “ubiquitous green taxis“
  • and, in Mexico travel writing, get rid of any variation of “…the
    hibiscus spills over the walls of…”

    • Utility, futility

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    Jeanne Yocum, public relations practitioner, suggests:

    If a lowly PR person can be allowed in here: When/why did “utilize” become preferable to the simpler and…..errrr….highly useful “use?”

    A pox on whoever started this nonsense.

    Get off this program

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    Bob Lee sends a new one on me:

    Because my employment as a computer programmer requires that I read books and articles written about the so-called “object-oriented” programming, I am often assaulted by the following non-words: “instantiation,” which means simply an instance of something; “instatiate,” a verb which means to create an instance; and the various forms of the verb, including “instatiated” and “instatiating.”For those software engineers who report to me, I can insist that “instance” always be used in place of “instantiation.” However, I cannot police the entire software industry. I’m told the misuse of these terms originated with military programmers who wanted to sound educated through the use of big words. Have you been exposed to “instatiation?” Can you recommend a way to discourage its use?

    Editor’s note: To bastardize an old joke — “How do you keep
    a programmer from charging? Take away his stock options.”