Write like people, not like newspapers
One of the recurring annoyances in Associated Press style is its comfort with non-conversational English. Why the AP is comfortable with writing that sounds unlike the way any speaker of English (at least any non-journalist speaker of English) speaks or writes continues to baffle me.
One example: Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. I don’t know anyone who would say or write Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Democrat, Maryland, said … or worse, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, dee, em-dee, said… . Most people would write Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat.
The abbreviations are handy and perfectly acceptable in charts, but charts are not sentences. Written sentences follow the patterns, conventions, and rhythms of spoken language.* That the Associated Press, and the publications that slavishly follow its style, continue to embrace a newspaperese that is increasingly alien to the speech of readers, and unlike the kind of writing they prefer to read, may help to explain why readers have turned elsewhere.
*I will stipulate that there are documents, medical, scientific, technical, and legal, that are not intended to sound like the productions of human beings.
Comments
I do like the idea of not writing in newspaperese--there are lots of constructions that are unnatural. But in the cited example, when I read "Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md,..." my brain glosses over the "D-Md" but acknowledges the affiliation. It's a succinct way of letting readers know her party and state without using up space. Spelling it out makes it clunkier.
Posted by: Toma | March 1, 2011 9:18 AM
I don't mind "Sen.," just as I don't mind "Dr.," "Mr.," and other title abbreviations. I agree, however, that "D-Md." is clunky. If it were put in parentheses, I might tolerate it, but it still looks like alphabet soup to me. I'd rather see it written out.
Posted by: Erin Brenner | March 1, 2011 9:52 AM
[T]here are documents, medical, scientific, technical, and legal, that are not intended to sound like the productions of human beings.
Even though I edit two types of these documents--medical and scientific--I have to agree with you, Mr. McIntyre. And I was induced by your statement to truly laugh out loud, for which I heartily thank you.
Posted by: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf | March 1, 2011 10:01 AM
Not to mention the words and phrases that occur only in the media. Prices always skyrocket, and hit us in the pocketbook. A man brandishes a rifle (which is always high-powered), and shots ring out. Flann O'Brien noticed this long ago, but it's worse lately.
Posted by: Tim Hicks | March 1, 2011 11:18 AM
Another phrase that only occurs in the media: buses always plunge (off a cliff, down a ravine, into a river, etc.)
Posted by: Jim Sweeney | March 1, 2011 3:44 PM
May I add to the list of gripes, that in newspapers people always wed instead of marrying, contracts are inked not signed, conspiracies are outed rather than exposed... Grrr.
Posted by: Stilgherrian | March 1, 2011 8:29 PM
@ Jim Sweeney: I, too, have been bothered by plunging busses. To me, "plunge" has an element of volition which a bus would not possess. I'd prefer a nice Python-esque "plummet."
Posted by: City Redux | March 3, 2011 2:42 PM