Groaners.. from newswriters.com

[SoCalDem]

http://www.newswriting.com/groaners.htm



Groaners!



You know ‘em. You love ‘em. But can’t we live without ‘em? Groaners are those horrible, overused, hackneyed phrases that turn news copy into boring, “same old, same old” stuff. Here are some of the worst offenders:




Aftermath - Print words don’t belong in spoken copy. Do you know anyone who says “aftermath” in normal conversation? When we were kids, aftermath came recess.

Allegations -

“I deny the allegations... and I deny the alligator!” This bloated substitute for “claims”, “charges” or “accusations” is as bad as “allegedly”. Nobody in real life uses it. Unless they’ve been watching too much TV news.

Allegedly -

NOBODY, not even cops and district attorneys, NOBODY in real life says “allegedly” in regular conversation. Do you tell your neighbor that someone allegedly broke into your house? Do you tell your buddy that the mayor allegedly took a bribe? Why then, would you say such a thing to your television neighbors?! If you’re worried about legal protections, try these alternatives: “Police say Jones broke into the store”. “Prosecutors are claiming Smith embezzled the money”. “The U.S. Attorney says the Congressman took a bribe.”

Area Residents -

“Shhh, Tommy, don’t play the drums so loud, you’ll wake the area residents!” Normal people don’t refer to their neighbors this way. Why should we?

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[cloud_chaser1]

1. i HAVE A MAJOR EXAMPLE OF THIS.

Major Major Major Major is a fictional character in the 1961 novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. He has the surname Major, and at birth his father gave him the given name Major, and the middle name Major (despite informing the child's mother that he had named the boy 'Caleb' in accordance with her wishes; she only discovers Major Major's Major's real first and middle names when his birth certificate is required for him to enter kindergarten). The novel explains this was a joke on his father's part, and notes that it is not a particularly funny one.

Now, why do I bring this up? Because many years ago, a news director I worked for, attempted to get overused verbiage out of our newscasts. The word MAJOR was one such word....we had major fires, major catastrophies, major criminal cases, major accidents, etc etc etc. So, one day, he declared the word MAJOR verboten. Anbd this it became so, until.......

I had to do a report involving author Joseph Heller and his book Catch 22. To do it, I had to mention the nominally forbidden Army officer. But I was not allowed to say the word. So, I substitued it with mmmmm for the word. One sentence included this: "and when Heller created the character mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm, he......." A short time later, the word Major was back in our approved distionary.

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