Author Topic: I hate journalistic writing (Read 95339 times)

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #225 on:** February 25, 2009, 10:32:58 AM »

You know, sometimes I think they do that on purpose, just to see if anyone is paying attention.

Noemon · « **Reply #226 on:** February 25, 2009, 10:50:50 AM »

The same thing occurred to me with this one, Tante.

Jonathon · « **Reply #227 on:** February 26, 2009, 08:12:49 AM »

This is why all headline writers should be made to fill out a form before they pun.

rivka · « **Reply #228 on:** February 26, 2009, 09:17:14 AM »

I'm tempted to send that to my dad. But he'll claim it obviously doesn't apply to spoken puns.

Brinestone · « **Reply #229 on:** March 18, 2009, 08:32:18 AM »

A headline I saw today was broken this way, making it very difficult to parse:

Is peanut allergy
cure nuts?

Jonathon · « **Reply #230 on:** March 18, 2009, 08:41:27 AM »

That took me a few tries to get. Also, –5 points for the lame pun.

Jonathon · « **Reply #231 on:** May 23, 2009, 07:46:32 PM »

Even the New York Times is not free from making garden path sentences.

Porter · « **Reply #232 on:** May 23, 2009, 08:49:49 PM »

Guantanamo closing hands? That sounds worse than waterboarding!

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #233 on:** May 23, 2009, 11:40:06 PM »

My favorite ambiguous headline ever is "British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands"

pooka · « **Reply #234 on:** May 23, 2009, 11:57:37 PM »

Now that's what I call reparations.

Porter · « **Reply #235 on:** May 24, 2009, 07:52:00 AM »

My favorite is the apocryphal "Students Help Rape Victims".

Neutros the Radioactive Dragon · « **Reply #236 on:** May 24, 2009, 07:57:22 AM »

The mind boggles.

Jonathon · « **Reply #237 on:** June 01, 2009, 03:15:29 PM »

Union voices GM deal job concerns

pooka · « **Reply #238 on:** June 02, 2009, 03:32:03 AM »

What's wrong with that one, besides being awkward and the Union being ambiguous?

Jonathon · « **Reply #239 on:** June 02, 2009, 08:30:42 AM »

I first read "voices" as a noun and "deal" as a verb.

Jonathon · « **Reply #240 on:** June 23, 2009, 08:51:55 PM »

There's a beautiful misplaced modifier at the beginning of the third paragraph in this article:

Quote

Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense.

rivka · « **Reply #241 on:** June 23, 2009, 09:01:59 PM »

Noemon · « **Reply #242 on:** June 24, 2009, 04:27:38 AM »

:: laugh :: That's great.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #243 on:** August 05, 2009, 11:47:15 AM »

AUGH!!! Horse Power: Colt Tramples Car on Israeli Highway

(a headline on FoxNews.com)

I HATE IT when journalists who know nothing about animals trying to get cutesy with headlines.
A "colt" is a male horse, usually less than one or two years of age (not breeding stud yet).

the horse in that video:
1) doesn't appear to be male
2) certainly does appear to be that young.

< -- has new pet peeve.

Jonathon · « **Reply #244 on:** August 05, 2009, 11:51:48 AM »

The "horse power" pun is also pretty terrible.

sweet clementine · « **Reply #245 on:** August 05, 2009, 12:50:42 PM »

Why did they feel the need to use the word colt? A good rule of writing, if a generic term will do, use it (if you're not going to actually check any facts at least). Don't expose your own ignorance by trying to be specific. It's like, I'm looking at a bowl of pasta, I could say "look at that bowl of pasta" or I could say "look at that bowl of cous-cous". Is cous-cous a pasta? I don't know. But now we have to discuss it, AND turns out I'm an idiot because I got cous-cous confused with pene.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #246 on:** August 05, 2009, 12:57:05 PM »

"Colt" is also the name of a car. Dodge made them. I suppose they could have called the horse a "mustang". That's a kind of car, too.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #247 on:** August 05, 2009, 01:00:17 PM »

Well, the whole video upsets me to begin with -- because obviously the car "filming" the loose horses are not attempting to help the situation, their following them right along with that is, if anything, making the situation much worse for all.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #248 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:33:20 PM »

The local county newspaper here has (just in time for August!) an article about how August is National Watermelon Month. Included is some dubious watermelon trivia: "Although people treat it as a fruit, the watermelon is actually a vegetable. It is related to the Cucumber Family." "Seedless watermelons are made by exposing the watermelon blossoms to high doses of radiation, rendering them sterile. Scientists tell us that the residual radiation in the watermelon is not harmful when consumed in moderate amounts."

I'm cracking the heck up. I guess with the times they way they are, they had to cut back on fact-checkers. And journalists.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #249 on:** August 26, 2009, 07:13:13 AM »

Although people treat it as a vegetable, the cucumber is actually a fruit! It is related to the watermelon family.