An extension of the Common Sense Journalism monthly column by Doug Fisher, former broadcaster, newspaper reporter and wire service editor. From new media to old, much of journalism is just plain common sense.
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Unknown (often improperly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire
"Common sense is instinct; enough of it is genius" - George Bernard Shaw
Catching up, my seemingly permanent state of affairs, I see Ruth Walker posted late last month on her Verbal Energy blog a piece on one of my great irritants: The continued and expanding use of nouns in place of adjectives (starting with the Iraq war).
posted by Doug @ 2:27 PM
2 comments|
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2 Comments:
I sometimes wonder if the way we copy editors write headlines in tight counts might, ironically, be a factor in the overall trend toward increased use of attributive nouns in written English. Heck, we don’t even limit ourselves to nouns. In headlinese, verbs are fair game as attributives: “Kidnap trial,” “Slay suspect.” We find ourselves forced to employ usages in headlines that we wouldn’t allow anyone else to get away with in other contexts.
That's a good point. I think it's also just a product of trying to squeeze more in generally, just as we've seen the dropping of verbs on some TV newscasts. TV may have another role in this, too -- those adjectives often are a tad tougher to say on the air, with another syllable or an ending sound that must be swallowed or moved to the back of the mouth. So you hear the noun form and eventually think it's correct.
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