Broadcast news copy is thrown together at the last minute so often that it’s not a surprise mistakes make it on air.
Some of them are factual, the worst kind as far as I’m concerned, but others are simple mistakes in language.
Some words are used incorrectly so often they should be banned from use. “Literally” is one of them. “Unique” is another.
To say a new department store was literally bursting at the seams from opening day crowds is wrong, wrong, wrong. Unless the store really was so crowded that the building’s walls tumbled outward from the pressure of all those bodies.
To write that a murder suspect offered a “unique” defense, you’re saying no one has ever, in the history of the world, made the same excuse. Unique means one of a kind. Something can not be the “most unique”…or even “very unique”. It either is or it is not. Like being dead.
Newspapers sometimes get into grammatical trouble too, even the very big and very old ones. Like The New York Times. Here’s the way they started a story on their web site on Sunday:
TINLEY PARK, Ill. — The authorities in this suburb southwest of Chicago were engaged in a huge search on Saturday evening for a man they say shot and killed five women in a clothing store during a robbery attempt gone wrong.
It’s not the first time that phrase has been used… “a robbery attempt gone wrong”. But I want to know this: if he had just robbed the store and not killed anyone would it have been “a robbery gone right?” And since the suspect has still not been arrested, much less questioned, how do they know he didn’t plan to kill everyone on the scene from the beginning? If so, as far as he was concerned, it was a robbery “gone right”.
Not too long ago reporters would say a terrorist had “claimed credit” for an attack. Eventually folks questioned whether “credit” was the correct word…and suggested “responsibility” would be better.
A former co-worker of mine reminded me recently of the time she had gone with me to cover a story back when she was an intern. Another reporter was interviewing a woman who’s house had blown up from a gas main leak, and that reporter asked “did you ever think something like this would happen when you got up this morning.” I promised the intern banishment is she ever asked so dumb a question.
Some of them are factual, the worst kind as far as I’m concerned, but others are simple mistakes in language.
Some words are used incorrectly so often they should be banned from use. “Literally” is one of them. “Unique” is another.
To say a new department store was literally bursting at the seams from opening day crowds is wrong, wrong, wrong. Unless the store really was so crowded that the building’s walls tumbled outward from the pressure of all those bodies.
To write that a murder suspect offered a “unique” defense, you’re saying no one has ever, in the history of the world, made the same excuse. Unique means one of a kind. Something can not be the “most unique”…or even “very unique”. It either is or it is not. Like being dead.
Newspapers sometimes get into grammatical trouble too, even the very big and very old ones. Like The New York Times. Here’s the way they started a story on their web site on Sunday:
TINLEY PARK, Ill. — The authorities in this suburb southwest of Chicago were engaged in a huge search on Saturday evening for a man they say shot and killed five women in a clothing store during a robbery attempt gone wrong.
It’s not the first time that phrase has been used… “a robbery attempt gone wrong”. But I want to know this: if he had just robbed the store and not killed anyone would it have been “a robbery gone right?” And since the suspect has still not been arrested, much less questioned, how do they know he didn’t plan to kill everyone on the scene from the beginning? If so, as far as he was concerned, it was a robbery “gone right”.
Not too long ago reporters would say a terrorist had “claimed credit” for an attack. Eventually folks questioned whether “credit” was the correct word…and suggested “responsibility” would be better.
A former co-worker of mine reminded me recently of the time she had gone with me to cover a story back when she was an intern. Another reporter was interviewing a woman who’s house had blown up from a gas main leak, and that reporter asked “did you ever think something like this would happen when you got up this morning.” I promised the intern banishment is she ever asked so dumb a question.
P.S. Yes, feel free to call me on mistakes you see/hear me make on FTR. (-:
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