TV reporters, writing in a style that substitutes gerunds for verbs. Stories, dribbling out over the air that are replete with nonsensical non-sentences. TV news managers, too distracted to rein in this stuff. Blogger, irritated every time he hears it, now picking on the new kid at WAGA, who wrote way too much of a story this way. The new kid, probably just mimicking similar stuff written by other reporters in Atlanta.
Yoda, an inexact parallel. Acceptable, at your discretion.
Viewers, wishing they could hear stories with complete sentences. News junkies, turning to newspapers and the web, where they don’t write this way. God, getting thanked for that.
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Posted by Eugene on October 9, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Your mockery is right on the money. That bullshit style is profoundly irritating.
Posted by LBJ on October 9, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Ahhh, we pine away for the old days, when Paul Shields and Ken Roberts put “now” in front of every other sentence.
Posted by rptrcub on October 9, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Sentences. Verbs. Gerunds. Has them, we do.
Posted by brad clontz on October 9, 2008 at 4:21 pm
will these intrepid newsgatherers rein in this tendency? only time will tell.
Posted by live apt fire on October 9, 2008 at 4:33 pm
@ LBJ: Just as, one day, we’ll pine for the pols and pundits who now start each argument with “Look…”
Posted by Dave Darling on October 16, 2008 at 4:24 pm
As The New Yorker put it in a review of the most recent Star Wars movie, “A break me fucking give.”