The New York herald., 1921-07-10
Headline English Called
Yellow Peril of journalism

Yellow Peril of Journalism
Mr.. Cobb represents his hero as working
on paper in one of our smaller cities but
I am afraid that this man has lately been
promoted to one of our metropolitan jour
nails. If he is not now engaged on the
paper / have in mind, then he must have
q twin brother with identical idiosyncrasles
In fact he must be one of q large family
all holding down fat jobs and recklessy
maltreating our helpless language; and his
evil influence has been denounced by Mr..
E. F. Mitchell, the editor of the brisk and
brilliant paper upon which Charles A. Dana
impressed his personality. Mr. Mitchell
was cutting in his analysis Of the immedi
ate peril of the language. "The headline
is more influential than a hundred chairs
of rhetoric in the shaping Of future English
speech. There is no livelier perception than
in the newspaper offices of the incalcuable
havoc being wreaked upon the language by
the absurd circumstance that only so many
millmeters of type can go into so many
millimeters width Of column. Try It your
self and you will understand why the
fraudulent use of so many compact but
msused verbs, nouns and adiectives Is being
imposed on the coming generation. In its
worst aspect. headline English is the yell
low peril of the language"
No doubt what Mr.. Mitchell said needed
to be said; and the warning he sounded
ought to be needed. But even If he did
not misstate his case, l venture to think
that he little overstated It, Fortunately
the unholy passion for abbreviating words
or for employing brief words by wrenching
them from their proper use Is still con-
fined to the dialect Of the headlines. These
abhorrent usages show no tendency to
spread down into the articles over which
the headlines display themselves like
resplendent electric sign on top Of two
story taxpayer. We may hope that the
vogue Of this fashion will be fleeting. for
there would be painful corruption of the
language If it should be taken up by the
readers Of the papers which have sue
cumbed to the allurements of this needless
monstrosity. Strange indeed would be the
condition Of our language If many of us
began to talk about Tiny Tots. Quizzes and
Grills, Probes and Pacts. And yet, even
IL that condition came to pass, IL would not
long seem strange. The language would
make the best of a bad case, as 1t has
n
Grafton or two or three only specialists in
the history of English would know that
the case had ever been bad
That there are other infelicities in news
paper practice need not be denied-ndeed
II could not be denied. The only wonder
Is that there are not more of them, be-
cause there Is an ever-present temptation
for n journalist to write journalese, to he
subdued to what he works in, to content
himself with the well worn words. with the
threadbare epithets, with the secondhand
and third-rate commonplaces and conve,
tionalites, havorless and innutritious
''The daily risk of newspapers and the in
dividual newspaper Is that It will have an
editorial dialect of its own" so Mr.. Tai
colt Williams admits. and that reporting
will become reportese"
When we take into consideration the
necessary rapldity with which newspaper
men have to do their work and the i'm
possibility Of revision under which they
labor. the wonder is not that they fall from
grace now and again but that they are
able 10 maintain an acceptable average.
Al times they may be unduly colloquial
hut on the other hand they are very rarely
pedantlc III they do not always draw from
the well OF English undened, al least they
let down. their buckets into the overflow
ing springs which continually refresh the
speech of the people. And most of them
obey the law laid down by George Henry
Iewes In his Illuminating series Of papers
on Success In Literature" Never
rouge your style; trust to your native
pallor rather than cosmetics"