By Bob Yearick
Where Are the Editors? (Formerly “Media Watch”)
(The title of this section has changed to better reflect the lack of editing in today’s media. Examples below.)
•Reader David Hull found this in The Guardian, in an interview with actor Christopher Lee: “It was fascinating to hear him recant stories from the old movie days and his crowning glory, The Wicker Man.” That’s recount stories. Recant means to withdraw or repudiate (a statement or belief) formally and publicly.
•Continuing our discussion of commas after greetings, a reader noticed an item among Southwest Airlines seat-back literature that began with “Hi, there.” In this case, as the reader notes, there should be no comma after Hi because there is not a person or a group. The whole phrase, Hi there, is the greeting. If it had been “Hi, everyone,” then the comma would be needed.
•Reader Bruce Hudson reports that political pundit Chris Cillizza, in So What, a Substack publication, asked the question, “Does Donald Trump smell badly?” Bruce points out that the subject was Trump’s odor, “but the use of the adverb badly instead of bad changed this into a question about the former guy’s sense of smell.”
•Reader Luann Haney spotted this opener for a PBS show that offers financial advice: “Who’s money is it?” Should be whose, of course. Says Luann: “First time I’ve seen this kind of flub from PBS.”
•Rymir Vaughn in The Philadelphia Inquirer: “(Evan) Simon battled Gavin Wimsatt for the starting job in 2023, and Rutgers coach Greg Schiano went with Wimsatt, regulating Simon to the bench.” Simon was relegated to the bench.
•Also in The Inky, Max Dinenberg observed that Temple football suffered from “self-inflicting wounds” that led to a loss. Those wounds were self-inflicted.
•A story by Keith Pompey in The Inky provided multiple examples of the absence of editors. First, there was the headline: “Embiid on verge of historical season.” No, Joel Embiid is on the verge of a historic season — something momentous or important. Historical simply refers to history, such as “the historical record.”
Later in the story, Pompey committed this redundancy: “Even Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t even do all of the things Embiid is doing.”
And finally, there was this crosshead halfway through the piece: “Historic season.” So they got it right this time, but it contradicts the story’s headline.
Danglers
(A dangling modifier — also known as a dangling participle — is a type of ambiguous grammatical construct whereby a modifier modifies the wrong noun.)
•Follow, if you can, this serpentine explanation in a sign accompanying the recent Ann Lowe exhibit at Winterthur Museum. It has Lowe being introduced to herself: “Jacqueline Kennedy may be Ann Lowe’s most famous client. Introduced to Lowe through her mother Janet Auchincloss, Lowe made her debutante gown as well as the dress for her 1953 marriage to John F. Kennedy.” Also, Janet Auchincloss should be set off in commas.
•Host Jane Pauley, on CBS News Sunday Morning: “With 98 candles on his birthday cake, and more than seven decades in show business, Tracy Smith is looking back on the career of Dick Van Dyke . . .” Tracy Smith — a woman — is nowhere near 98 years old. Blame the writers for this, not Jane.
The Epitome Problem
Recently, in a Frank Sinatra Facebook group, a picture of Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. had this laughably off-the-mark caption: “The epithet of cool.” What was meant was not epithet — usually a disparaging or abusive word (as in racial epithets) — but epitome, which itself is often misused.
Epitome (not epitomy) is pronounced uh-pi-tuh-mee (not ep-uh-tome), and usually means a person or thing that is a perfect example of a particular quality or type. It does not mean “pinnacle” or “climax,” as in this example courtesy of lexicographer and legal scholar Bryan Garner: “ESPN reached the epitome [read pinnacle or zenith] of boredom during its marathon coverage of the NFL draft.”
Word of the Month
recondite
Pronounced re-kan-dite, it’s an adjective meaning 1) difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend; 2) of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure.
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