"Victory" vs. "Win"?

The first place I worked news desk, I never caught enough of these to the satisfaction of the desk chief. Wasn’t enough of a stickler about widows and trapped space either. But weirdly enough, I always seemed to be the one catching factual errors on final read that others had missed or rewriting garbled passages. I consider this column my vindication.

 

I’m still not quite sure why, but the one that bothered me the most was when AP decided only certain state abbreviations no longer needed periods, and that it only applied to those few in headlines.

It was nothing more than a white flag to lazy and/or bad headline writers.

 

We had a guy who always would write the pitcher "struckout" the batter.
We fixed it every time. He never noticed. And he now writes for The Athletic.

Yeah, someone shoulda told him. But it was more of a curiosity to see if he ever caught on.

 

I’ve died on too many over-more than hills, but for fuck’s sake, further and farther are not the same thing — at all.

 

The worst “writer” I ever edited was also the only Pulitzer winner I ever edited.

 

There is writing, and there is reporting.

There are many outstanding reporters who are crappy writers. And vice versa.

 

Correct. But this guy was so terrible that whatever “facts” he was reporting were buried under a mountain of keyboard diarrhea.

He won his Pulitzer before we ever worked together, and I always wanted to reach out to whoever edited him there and tell that person that he/she was the real MVP.

 

One guy I edited used "under center" as a synonym for "quarterback" -- Joe Blow was under center.
This team was in the shotgun 95 percent of the time, so the goddamn quarterback was NOT under center. I told him. He, too, now works at The Athletic.

The thing I remember about "win" and "lose" in heads -- just about every headline could have "win" in it, so use something else for variety, use victory or triumph. It wasn't a hard and fast rule, but we did try to observe it.

 

The joining of words that should not be joined drives me nuts.

Earlier this year I read a story about a redbrick house. We see and use backyard but never frontyard. I continue to see that "the game will kickoff at 7:00 pm" (which gives me hives and seizures) and also that "John will kick the ball off" instead of "John will kick off the ball."

We learn about someone's housecat but never a barncat. Or that someone is using a riflescope at the range or in the field.

The loss of copy editors, the good ones, along with the muddling attitudes of "Eh, just post it and you can maybe fix anything later." are a damned shame.

 

Monday papers are the worst. A whole lot of people/teams are winning triumphing on Sundays.

 

I think my old boss neared the pinnacle when he wrote Team A "shillelaghed" Team B.

 

That one drives me nuts, too, and defies logical explanation.