Hiring standards for stringers for high school sports

Thinclads was one of those old terms, mostly for high school or college publications where every team is the Eagles, etc. Also, grapplers, cagers, gridders, tankers, leatherlungs, netters, spikers, diamondmen .....

 

All of those were used in headlines at my first newspaper. SE was easily 30 years my senior so pretty sure he started in newspapers in the late 60s/early 70s. Half the stuff he wrote in heds I didn’t know as words until working there.

 

Have them write better than this.

 

"Hey, it's Joe in composing. You're an inch short on that story down the right side of C6. I'm going to stick in a thinclad dingbat."



"Oh, no, you're not. I'll be right down."

 

C’mon … that’s what high school team logos are for!

 

Helmets!

 

The ones who brought you "solons," "cagers" and "nimrods" ... bring you ....

 

Solons Meet To Tab New Prexy

 

We had an old-timer come in Friday nights to do conference recaps and I didn’t recognize it as English. I was assured our aging readership understood the lingo.

“Yards are not called Ticks!”

“They are here!”

 

There's nothing like copy-editing on deadline and coming across, "Polk High shillelaghed Montrose 54-0."

Poor guy apparently tired of the words "defeated" and "beat."

 

For awhile, I put a moratorium on stated, opined, remarked, smiled, etc.
There was, and is, nothing wrong with said.

 

One of my JM professors asked us all to smile one day during class. Then he said, "OK, now say something while smiling."

"said with a smile" is impossible. "said" takes care of it.

Opined, remarked, stated are unnecessary. Said works.

I'm not a fan of "says," either. The editor of one magazine I write for uses 1-9 for numbers and changes said to says. Drives me bananas. But the checks clear so I roll with it.