I wasn't an English major in college ... but I was only a couple of credits short of an English minor. I'm not
really a professional writer ... but I have been paid a modest stipend for an occasional article. And I'm not a journalist, but a good friend (now deceased) was a newspaper editor and later a professor of journalism. So I read "the media" with a mixture of dismay, disgust, and amusement. Not only about their leftist orientation, but just about their inability to even comprehend what the *&%$# they're writing.
My perennial favorite is the articles when they try to call some politician's or celebrity's lawyer late on a Sunday evening and (naturally) get no answer. In the old days, this would have been reported (more or less correctly) as, "So-and-so had not returned our call by press time." Somehow, in recent years, this has been universally transformed into, "So-and-so did not immediately return our calls."
Yeah, so what? He was sprobably at home asleep, not sitting in his office on Sunday night waiting for you to call. This "immediately" thing always conjures up an image of the reporter and the editor huddled over the phone, the editor holding a stop watch. What;s the prescribed time for "immediately" returning a phone call, anyway? Is it like the court-approved 20 seconds for a "knock and announce" search warrant? The reporter dials the call, and when he/she says "There's no answer, I left a voice mail," the editor hits the stop watch.
"Five ... four ... three ... two ... one. THAT'S IT! He didn't immediately return our call. ROLL THE PRESSES!"
Here's a new one: Just saw an article on the Errornet about a guy who tried to board a flight carrying two training grenades. Not "dummy" grenades -- these (apparently) had live fuses. Here's the link, and the article:
http://www.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7814&eeid=5700899&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=3&ck=&ch=neMan Arrested With Training Grenades
Published: 2/18/08, 6:45 AM EDT
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - A 20-year-old member of the military was arrested after trying to get through airport security with two training grenades in a carry-on bag, police said.
Transportation Security Administration agents spotted the grenades using a belt scanner at Yakima Air Terminal around 11:15 a.m. Sunday, Police Sgt. Tim Bardwell said.
The grenades contained live fuses but had no explosives packed around them, Bardwell told the Yakima Herald-Republic. The man was released Sunday afternoon while prosecutors and the FBI look into the incident.
Police locked down the small airport for a few minutes, then evacuated about 30 or 35 people while explosive experts from the Army's Yakima Training Center dismantled the grenades. All scheduled incoming flights stayed on the ground at other airports.
Authorities said the man lives on a military base in California, but Bardwell would not disclose his name, his branch of service or details about his questioning.
Police temporarily allowed the only incoming flight that was already in the air to land. Passengers were offloaded at the police precinct, a few hundred yards away from the terminal, Bardwell said.
Normal operations resumed around 12:45 p.m.
Here's the part I liked:
Police temporarily allowed the only incoming flight that was already in the air to land. Passengers were offloaded at the police precinct, a few hundred yards away from the terminal, Bardwell said.
Now, someone please explain how you allow a commercial aircraft to "temporarily" land. What, exactly, does that mean? Is that a new term for what we used to call a "touch-and-go" landing?
The English (American) language is dead. Killed by teachers of English who do NOT teach English.
For those interested in this sort of stuff and not old enough to have remembered Watergate, I highly recommend two books by Edwin Newman, a journalist who
could write clear English:
Strictly Speaking, and
A Civil Tongue. Both are excellent reading, and perversely amusing once you look beyond the idiocy they depict.
