by Mar 20, 2006 at 10:43 AM


I'm pretty picky about what gets written, because the author has time
to think, proof, and change.

But I am very forgiving of most impromptu speaking situations.
Speakers are thinking as the form the thoughts and phrases, and
frequently change and adjust midstream. If I recorded my own speaking,
I'd probably destroy the tapes.

There is an exception to this, and that is tv and radio
newscasters--newsreaders. THey have a prepared script, and it is all
wrong. I am seriously considering giving up on listening to tv news,
because they are nearly all reading the stuff in newspaper-headline
style. They use no verbs, or everything is "--ing"
I once heard an entire segment on tv that had not one single sentence.
And we wonder why our population can't talk properly.



I agree.

I only know of one real news program on television: The News Hour with Jim
Lehrer. Gone are the likes of Edwin Newman. (His books, "Stricly
Speaking," and "A Civil Tongue" are good reads for people who believe that
proper use of the language matters.)

Today, all the network news is variety hour schlock about celebrities,
"life-styles," local crime, anything salacious, and car (and plane)
crashes. Brain-dead crap delivered by bo-toxed Stepford Wives with no
comprehension of what they are reading off the Tele-prompter.

Some newspapers are well written (WSJ and Washington Post for e.g.), but
many seem to have copy editors that failed English 101. As far as AOPA, I
think their editors never took a high school level English course. Their
use of the language is shockingly bad, and sometimes the articles are
unintentionally funny. I once posted something they wrote that was so
mangled that one of the regulars here accused me of fabricating it. I
guess when you hire a network TV executive as President of the
organization, I guess that is to be expected.