By Bob Yearick
Where Are the Editors?
Let’s start with a couple of redundancies from the Olympics:
• Hoda Kotb, co-anchor of NBC’s Today, in her first report on the Olympics from Paris, referred to the “iconic Eiffel Tower.” Do we really need to be told that it’s iconic?
• Subhead in USA TODAY: “Swimmer takes eighth gold spanning across four Olympic Games.” A transitive verb, spanning means “extending from side to side or extending across,” so appending across or over is redundant — and wrong.
• Gabe Lacques, also USA TODAY, noting that the Phillies retained their top rank among MLB teams despite a losing streak: “But that’s only because every other elite team has been as bad — or worse — as them.” Worse as and them are both incorrect, so Gabe should’ve recast the italicized words as follows: “as bad as — or worse than — they are.”
• From The New York Times, courtesy of reader Jane Buck: “Sometimes the most effective horror movie isn’t the one with a ton of jump scares; it’s the one that effects you emotionally and psychologically.” Even the legendary Times mixes up effects and affects.
• Writer/editor Larry Nagengast noticed this in a News Journal story on embezzlement from the state’s Unemployment Compensation Fund: “. . . state officials began the process of recuperating the stolen funds through Brittingham’s estate.” That should be recouping — making up a loss by getting something equal in return. Recuperating, of course, means getting well after an injury or illness.
• Another Larry — Hamermesh — also found TNJ to be lax, this time in a story describing requirements for participation in a refugee resettlement program: “The criteria includes [list follows]. . .” Criteria is plural, so the verb should be include. That said, the singular criterion is rarely used, so it’s easy to see how the writer may have been asleep at the keyboard.
• Our Midwest correspondent sends this image from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website, about Kettle Moraine State Park. In both cases, that should be “Bridle Trail,” since they are for horses, not brides. Says our correspondent: “Kind of makes me want to hum some Mendelssohn as we head out on the trail.”
Literally of the Month
A reader spotted this on the website for Spire Center for Performing Arts, in Plymouth, Mass.: “In 1969, a band of four English musicians arrived in New York and literally took America by storm.” As the reader asks, what exactly does it mean to take America by storm? BTW, the band was Jethro Tull.
Department of Redundancies Dept.
• Jeff Neiburg, in The Philadelphia Inquirer: “It was the main topic du jour on opening day: the relationship between the quarterback and the head coach.” Topic du jour is a nice little metaphor, but the writer ruined it by adding main.
• Ellie Rushing, also in The Inky, reported that a Bensalem man was charged with homicide by vehicle after he “veered onto the sidewalk at a high rate of speed and fatally struck a pedestrian.” Once again: speed is the rate at which an object moves.
Grammar-Challenged Politics
• Reader Ann Miller points out two errors in this first sentence of a press release from the Delaware Democratic Party: “The amount and tenor of primaries this election cycle has been encouraging.” Number is used with plurals (primaries), and the sentence has a plural subject — amount and tenor — so the verb should be have been encouraging.
• Reader Ginger Weiss spotted this headline from TNJ: “Who did the Del. Democratic Party endorce in the 2024 races?” Again, a twofer: The verb endorse is misspelled, and its object is whom, not who.
Mea Culpa
Last month, the column referred to a base guitar. A couple of my trusty readers point out that it’s bass guitar. I’m properly red-faced.
Word Term of the Month
Chekhov’s gun
A principle in drama, literature, and other narrative forms asserting that every element introduced in a story should be necessary to the plot. The concept was popularized by Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov, who frequently illustrated the principle by using a gun as an example of an essential element. Some authors, including Ernest Hemingway, have disagreed.
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