Bastardization of words

Ballgame.

 

I just caught that in a cutline. Doh!!

 

Someone mentioned the redundancies earlier. I think on the first three write-thrus of an AP story for one of the baseball games last week I had to fix a "first-ever."

Grrr.

 

examples I read or hear almost daily:

grizzly murder (is there another kind?)

further instead of farther

over instead of more than

most definitely

went to war (usually in high school football game stories)

gentle giant

legend instead legendary

truly

played within themselves

exploded for (fill in the blank) points

26.2-mile marathon (is there another kind of marathon?)

 

I see more writers get that wrong than right.

My submission on these types of threads is always: anxious

 

Writers misuse "ironic" all the time. It means something happened that nobody expected. Buckweaver had it right when he pointed out that "host" is not a verb, although I don't necessarily agree with the dictionaries on that one. Technically, we should be writing, "Podunk High plays host to East Podunk High next week," though that sounds a little hokey and cliched to me.

And IJAG also nailed it (yes, I finally addressed you properly ). First-ever is straight out of the department of redundancy department, just like first-annual. Hell, fourth-annual even is stupid. If it's only happened four times, how can it be an annual occurrance?

 

Yes, well, I'll change it if you don't write it that way. And then I'll send my first ME after you, because he WILL convince you never to do it again. Just like he did to me.

I love the guy, but you wanna talk about "things you irrationally hate," that was his ...

 

Send him my way ... along with your copy of the 2004 Webster's

 

I'll disagree with this one forever.

Acts of aggression are attacks or acts of war.

Someone who is aggressive displays aggressiveness.

 

But "host" is okay, whereas most of the entries in this list are being used improperly as the rules have it today. If I don't need the extra words, out they go.

In that vein: "currently". Listen, you fucking assbag motherfuckers, if you're using the present tense, it is NOT NECESSARY, unless you're talking electricity, to say anything remotely like "current". "The Rams are currently 10-2"? How about "The Rams ARE 10-2". If you don't think your readers are smart enough to get "are" and "is", then they're not going to get "currently".

 

We had a writer today who used roster as a verb.

Argh.

 

Thank you.