Brookings register. (Brookings, S.D.) 1890-1894, 1892-04-01
SAY WHAT you MEAN.
How the Elder Bennett Taught Young
Reporter - Lesson.

How the Elder Bennett Taught a Young
Reporter ~ Lesson.
There should be a rule in every
newspaper office prohibiting the use of
certain phrases and expressions, said
my friend the old war correspondent,
as he threw down paper in the ele.
waited car. 1T distresses me to see
poor, old, hackneyed, worn out express
sions kept at work daily when they
should have been retired long ago
Why should a reporter always refer to
a mans immaculate linen, when he
means to say that the man wore clean
shirt2 And why in heavens maine
should a man or woman be described
as well groomed! Here they are both
in one paragraph, and just beside them
is the man who, according to the re,
porter, is always saying something real
devlish with a twinkle in his eye, and
the other fellow who made this or that
remark as he lit fresh cigar
There should be cemetery for
senile and used up words and phrases
that have outlived their usefulness.
if they ever were useful, and about E
thousand of them should be laid away
in quicklime at once and never resur-
rected
Speaking of cemeteries, why should
a man, as soon as he is dead, be re-
ferred to as 'poorr Here | read of a
railroad conductor, who was killed i'm
a railroad collision. Yesterday he was
the genial Conductor Brown today
he is poor Brown The word seemed
to be applied especially to men who in
life were good fellows, and also to
those whose death was caused by vio-
lence 1t is not used in connection
with great men. You never read or
hear of poor Napoleon, poor Shake
speare or poor Frederick the Great,
do you!
II do not expect the reporters to re.
form SO long as their employers allow
the use of such idiotic words and
phrases, When was younger than |
AIN today, and thought knew about as
much as an ordinary man could be ex-
pected to know this side of the grave, /
was reporter on The Herald under the
elder Bennett. Mr. Bennett sent for
me one day. He said: Young man, !
notice that in your efforts to find men
whom you have been instructed to in.
terview you never enter hotel
said.
No, sir; you invariably write that
you 'drifted in and when you do drift
in you never meet the man
"'Never meet him."
mo; | observe that in every case
after drifting in you either run against
or stumble across the object of your
pursuit. l wish that in future you
would simply walk into the hotel and
meet these people. That's all sir
81 was angry, for | prided myself
on my English and on my literary
style. | said Mr.. Bennett, have been
writing now nine or ten years and have
worked on a number of newspapers as
good as The Herald. fiatter myself
that | know something about the Eng
lish language. and L
Young man. interrupted Mr.. Ben
net, did you ever read of how man
once boasted to Sidney Smith that the
stick he carried had been twice around
the world, and how Smith took the
stick and, after carefully examining it,
said, And yet-and yet, it is only a
stick after all" "''
"What did you say to that9" asked
my friend, the war correspondent.
II maintained tunultuous silence,
and-no. | did not Drift out went
out of the room. -. Annoy Knox.