The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-06-16
NEWSPAPER ENGLISH.
A Little Timely Criticism From a Reader
and a Student.

| A Little Timely Criticism From a Reader
and a Student.
The newspaper is an educator. That
has been the boast of journalism many
wears, and there was a time when the
boast was made good in it's best sense,
but it has been losing its justification.
Education means, literally, a drawing
out; broadly, it mea a drawing out
into knowledge, and, theoretically,
knowledge means correctness. There
fore. in its relation to language, the
newspaper as an educator should be
the promoter of purity in d~iction, while
the fact is that nothing has done
to pollute language than newspaper
English" Errors of dictiOn have
! grown, through constant iteration in
the newspapers, to become rules OF
speech, and both etymology and syntax
are persistently ignored by the reporter,
without even the excuse of euphuism.
The worst of it is that the half edu-
Gated reporter or newspaper writer in
sists that in making himself understood
he fulflls the mission of language, and
a majority of the people who read the
newspapers are deluded by the idea
that d reporter or an editor must nee
essarilv be a man of education. The
reporter or writer sometimes o even
SO far as to argue hat common usage
is the mOlder of speech and that the
commonly accepted expression of an
idea is necessarily correct, ignoring the
fact that under this rule it might
be possible for pigeon English" to be-
come legitimized. The argument is a
dcmOralizing cOrOllary of POpe's falla-
ciOus assertion hat "whatever is is
right" When the average newspaper
writer says hat numerous people,
witnessed an occurrence he meal that
d numerous crowd was present, but he
cOnfOunds the word numerous with
the word many" of which it is not in
any sense d synonym, as its actual
meaning is ''inclusive of many" He
says, almost habitually, Every one of
the racers were ready for the start"
and will scarcely be convinced that
the word "One'' and not the word
racers is the nominative in the sem
tence, requiring, therefore, the verb to
be in the singular. SententiOusly he
informs you that the man who was
shot only lived five minutes after
the shot was fired, when what he wants
you to understand is that the man
Lived only five minutes" after that oc-
currence. When he tells you that a
wedding ''transpired' he simply causes
the fact of the wedding to ''transpire;'
a secret wedding doesn't ''transpire"
until it becomes known. The reporter
likes the phrase funeral ~obsequies,"
that is the only kind of o~bsequies there
can be, SO the adjective 'funeral'
is unnecessary. If he keeps OF he
will give us wedding nuptials' ere
long. When he describes an en-
t~ertainment, an opera Or a play he is
almost certain to wreck himself on an
genealogical rock by speaking of the
"renditiOn' of one or another portion
of the programme; and the funny thing
about it is that he may have been a law
student and ought to know that the
word ''renditiOn" means a rendering
up, a giving up or a surrender, by one
party to another, and not the reading,
acting, singing, presentation OF per-
Torrance of a song, opera or play. The
little French word nee is a constant
stumbling block to the reporter, and
not only does he cause ONE to have
been born already christened MARY"
or Jane or "Cornelia,' but he has
gone even so far as to cause them to
have been born widows, as wa done by
the brilliant fellow who once wrote
concerning 1.-The Duchess of Marlbor-
ough, nee Mrs. Hammersley." l could
multiply instances Of shocking "news-
paper English" ad libitum ct ad nause-
um, but regret that they are multiply
ing themselves. 1t is to be hoped that,
because the newspaper is really pos
sessed of potentiality as an educator, it
will awake to the necessity of better ed |
ucation for the men who write for it |
and those who edit what is writ |
ten.-Fred w. Weber, in n. Y. Adver-
tiser.