Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,441 Location: Paris, France
Journalese « Thread Started on Mar 6, 2012, 2:41pm »
I was reading the NYT grammar blog today, and it sent me along to a blog about journalese: words journalists use that people never say. I doubt that it is possible to agree 100% with all of the examples since we all have our language quirks, but this part of the blog is quite accurate:
fled on foot = ran away high rate of speed = speeding physical altercation = fight verbal altercation = argument reduce expenditures = cut costs terminate employment = fire reduction in service = layoff blunt force trauma = injury discharged the weapon = shot transport the victim = take him/her lower extremities = legs officers observed = police saw at this point in time = now express concerns = complain incendiary device = bomb obtain information = ask or interview deceased = dead sexual relations = sex roadway = road fail to negotiate a curve = missed a curve determine a course of action = consider options vehicle = car or truck citizen = person individual = man or woman commence = begin emergency personnel = police, firefighters utilize = use complainant = victim fatally injured = killed motorist = driver juvenile male/female = teen boy or girl respond to the scene = arrive precipitation = rain, snow purchase = buy intoxicated = drunk controlled substances = drugs appendages = arms, legs contusion = bruise head trauma = head injury laceration = cut provide leadership = lead obstruct = block, get in the way came to the conclusion that = decided, figured out arrived at a decision = decided reside = live
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,290 Location: Mexico
Re: Journalese « Reply #1 on Mar 6, 2012, 2:52pm »
Aren't many of those words or phrases the ones used by various professions, then co-opted by the journalists when writing their reports?
For instance, "blunt trauma" is a medical term, right? Ditto laceration and contusion.
Yeah, many of those are journalistic conventions that sound quaint. But "this point in time" is a stupid redundancy that burst upon the scene with the testimony of John Dean during the Watergate hearings and has never gone away. It's right up there with "the general consensus of opinion".
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Journalese « Reply #6 on Mar 7, 2012, 2:22pm »
The best part though is when you hear one of these' talking heads' reading some of these terms and they get it wrong,whether by mispronunciation or whatever. Some gems that my husband and I fondly recall and still laugh about are; in describing a would be corpse,a reporter said that" levityhad set in" (as opposed to lividity,the correct term.) Another gem; rigor morgus had set in. (Morgus the Magnificent was a 1960's popular local TV show.)
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,441 Location: Paris, France
Re: Journalese « Reply #7 on Mar 7, 2012, 2:52pm »
My brother and I watched it every Saturday night. I will never forget the experiment where he put his arm through a meat grinder instead of a teleportation device.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 3,548 Location: Montréal
Re: Journalese « Reply #8 on Mar 8, 2012, 1:39am »
Evidently "vehicle" has become quite common parlance in the US, and the origin is military - it was an easy word to understand over primitive radio devices. A somewhat southern-US pronunciation of the term has come into vogue "vehicule" (I don't want to caricature anyone's accent here!!!)
Some of these are odd, as they are counterintuitive when we want to cut the word count. Short words such as "row" in English or "rixe" in French for an argument, brawl or fight.
I heard two funnies in French by Radio-Canada journalists whose mouths were in gear before their brains:
jeter le bébé avec l'eau du VIN (obviously, bain, throw out the baby with the bathwater).
Re: Journalese « Reply #9 on Mar 9, 2012, 11:56am »
Curious that it should go to the wordy, rather than short and punchy, option, whereas British journalese tends very much to favour the latter - such that someone isn't taken to hospital, they are in "a dramatic mercy dash*".
And no-one, but no-one, can be referred to or quoted in a newspaper without their age being given, and women are usually identifed as blonde (preferably "bubbly" =thick), redhead ("vivacious" =no better than she should be) or brunette ("fun-loving" =much worse than she should be).
*Someone once said the dream headline would be one that combined royalty, animals, something sexy and a drama - such as, ROYAL CORGI IN SEX-CHANGE MERCY DASH. One that really did happen was when there was a football player whose surname was Queen, and he played in a rather bad-tempered match involving the Crystal Palace team, leading to the headline QUEEN IN PALACE BRAWL.
Re: Journalese « Reply #10 on Mar 9, 2012, 5:17pm »
An excellent and clever headline recently remembered because of the death of the composer of the song was when a Scottish football team (Caledonian Thistle) beat another far better team (Celtic) unexpectedly. The headline was -
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,441 Location: Paris, France
Re: Journalese « Reply #12 on Mar 13, 2012, 11:58am »
Every cub reporter knows that . . . fires rage out of control, minor mischief is perpetrated by Vandals (never Visigoths, Franks, or a single Vandal working alone) and key labor accords are hammered out by weary negotiators in marathon, round-the-clock bargaining sessions, thus narrowly averting threatened walkouts.
(John Leo, "Journalese for the Lay Reader." Time, Mar. 18, 1985)
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Journalese « Reply #13 on Mar 13, 2012, 12:32pm »
And if you read police or EMS reports,you will see "some dude" on a vast majority of them quoted over and over again). ( when questioned about who stabbed him,response: "some dude"...)
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