Sunday, 8 June 2008
Reuters says employs bad internet freelance journalists
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There's a peculiar, mangled use of the present tense in journalism, apparently for the purpose of conveying immediacy. It also seems to go hand-in-hand with an aversion to pronouns. When used cleverly it can often make for snappy, memorable headlines; when deployed by a moron, it boggles brains.
Thanks to new GrammarBlog reader Michelle Stephens, who apparently felt an 'overwhelming urge' to share this with us. Good to know we're having that sort of effect on people.
posted by Tom at 10:48 am
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2 Comments:
TELL ME!
I keep hearing people use "on tomorrow" or "on yesterday" or "on today" in their speech and in emails I see.
For example: I will drop the package off on tomorrow.
Or
We went to the store on yesterday.
I think the headline writer started with a headline that began 'Canada says' and changed it to one that began 'Canada concludes' but then forgot to take the 'says' out. As a sub, I can say that I've made the same mistake (but luckily enough, it has always been caught by someone else before we went to press).
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