Words journalists use that people never say
Largely | Probe | Altercation
People are tweeting their suggestions, which include: reeling, risible, mercurial, opaque, kin, hoard, nix, scuttle, loggerheads, reeling, lauded, traded barbs, pivoted, salvo, slated and mull. || There are more great ones in the comments.
* Words journalists use that people never say | “You slay me”
Fiery, allegedly and atwitter
Nix. Nixed. Nixes.
Phrases, “To be sure”… (NY Times is huge abuser of that one…)
Eatery
Confab
Harrier
Thinclad
GOP
Indeed
“Good eats” ughh..!!!!!!
Scrum
Scotus
Flotus
Potus
Flatus
Embattled. Time will tell.
It is worth noting that some of the words journalists use are headlinese…we use them because they fit. And then there is the question of whether journalists use more precise words than the general public.
Many news-report-specific words are designed to cover multiple situations when we don’t know the specifics
“altercation” – if we’re unsure of the situation so we don’t know if “fight” is accurate
“collided” – nobody ever says “wow, those two cars just collided!” but we use it because it doesn’t pass judgement on who hit whom, often uncertain in breaking news. Similar with “vehicle” if we’re not sure it if’s a car, SUV or pickup -
Formerly. One-time. Erstwhile. Begs the question — but never, ever used correctly.
Eschew obfuscation by ditching these reportorial must-haves:
-convo
-phoner
-perpetrator
-pundit
-Beltway (see also “inside the” or “beyond the”)
“[City name]-based” as an adjective for corporations or people
Solon
Draconian – (Talking to you Boston Globe)
Bespectacled.
Kudos.
Garner.
Throng
Woo.
Vie.
“Kerfuffle.” (NPR’s little pet — makes me throw up in my mouth a little every time).
And any “quaint” population center that is “nestled” somewhere, according to The New York Times.
Also:
Some.
As in “some 900 people attended.”
I’m sure some jackasses attended too.
Starting a sentence with “Indeed, …”
I’m all for mocking cliches and jargon and so on, but I think there’s always a distinction between peoples’ written/read and spoken vocabularies. ‘Probe,’ for instance, doesn’t cut it in conversation, but on the page it’s often way better than ‘investigation,’ since the former requires only one syllable and five letters to achieve what the latter needs 13 letters and five syllables to achieve.
What I think is fascinating is that the word ‘louche’ appears literally 10 times as often in the NYT then it does in the WaPo. (as of a few years back when I did a Nexis check). And every time an earthquake occurs somewhere in the world the shifting tectonic plates shake loose a viral cloud that compels headline writers/editors to spit out the word ‘temblor,’ which no one says, writes or wants to read in the course of ordinary life.
My favorites are “temblor” and “ouster.”
“Gritty” (in reference to neighborhoods, it’s the opposite of “leafy”).
GUBERNATORIAL
no normal person has ever said gubernatorial
Blaze
Chic
kerfuffle
penultimate
raged
third rail (most Americans don’t live anywhere near places with mass transit via subway, trolley or elevated line)
Iconic (which I use in almost every story I write!)
Much-ballyhooed
beleaguered
inebriated
transient
absconded
my favorite is a british one … quango.
Tucked into (usually referring to a pear and arugula salad at the Four Seasons and the tucker-inner usually being a “rising starlet”)
Snapped up (referring to real estate, usually in East Hampton)
The pretentious folks at the network tv newsdesk downstairs from us locals always used “efforting”. Hate that word, as it has leaked out into on-air usage.
Fingered, as in the witness fingered the suspect. And that’s in a family newspaper.
Also, prexy for a college president.
Pocketbook
Blaze
Brandished
High-powered rifle
Shots rang out
Wake, as “in the wake of …”
Aftermath
imbroglio
brouhaha
“Individual” (sometimes plural!) and “subject” in place of person, man, suspect, whatever–both total police reportese.
“Brutal” when applied to beatings. I have yet to hear of a gentle one that made the news.
A couple I put in the comments at the original article from a few minutes’ reading the local news:
vowed (“The senator vowed to introduce the bill.”)
shuttered
residents (“Two residents were bound with tape in a home invasion.”) Also, “bound”.
burgeoning
It’s already been mentioned, but I HATE gubernatorial. NO one says “gubernatorial.”
Also, “quip.”
Teens.
No parent calls their teenager a “teen.” Teachers and police don’t say “teen” either. But reporters do.
Firestorm
Mull, nix, and some of the others are headlinese, words with a lower character count than the normal word, to fit in limited space. Not as much of a problem on the internet (although that depends on the website design). But handy on Twitter. I mull and nix all the time in tweets.
Dealt a blow.
“hotly debated”
And to all you who oppose “gubernatorial”: What would you prefer? “The governor election”?
Just once before I die I would like to hear a TV news or weather reporter, talking about a storm, say something other than “packing winds of . . . .” It’s hard to be sure where this seemingly mandatory expression came from; it might reflect a parallel with a fighter “packing a punch” (also way overused) or a bad guy “packing a gun.” In any case it’s idiotic and probably reflects the mental capacity of its users.
Totally devastated.
In UK in the 1970-90s this was the mandatory reaction to anything sad.
As in this TV interview:
Q: How devastated are you to lose your husband?
A: Totally devastated.