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MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Another sports-a

ON THE LINKS

It also a

STOPPAGE

Stoppage is another ungainly word. The most frequently heard euphemism for a labor strike is work stoppage. Apparently, labor strike sounded too Marxist for

loyal Americans. But stoppage sounds like an obstructed bowel. And stoppage is much too close to sewage for my comfort.

OUTAGE

Usage, linkage and stoppage remind me of outage. This is a word I simply dislike. It’s an awkward, ugly word. Outage. It sounds like something that’s done when a gay person’s identity is revealed. But actually its most frequent use is in describing a loss of electricity: power outage. We used to say power failure, but I guess Americans don’t like to admit failureeven when it’s manifest. Regardless, we ought to find a better way to answer the question, “What happened to the lights?”*

*I recently heard the following sentence on CNN: “Because of high winds, about 250,000 people in New England are without power.” I thought, “Gee, when you think about it, about 275 million people in the United States are without power. They just aren’t aware of it.”

UNCALLED-FOR EDITORIAL COMMENTS:

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?

When reporting a bombing by some radical group, the news media will often inform us that “No one has claimed responsibility. “Why is this wording used instead of “No one has taken credit”?To save the feelings of the dead people’s relatives? The people who did the bombing surely see it as credit. Let them have their moment in the sun. Look at all the trouble they went to.

UNFORTUNATELY, THEY ALL GOT OUT ALIVE

Here’s another gratuitous editorial appendage often heard on the TV-news coverage of a fire or an accident: “Luckily, no one was hurt” or “The good news is no one was injured.” I consider those to be editorial comments. After all, I may not think its such good news that no one was hurt. Fm entitled to decide for myself whether or not injuries to strangers are good or bad news. I may prefer hearing, “It’s a shame no one was hurt.” It’s entirely possible. Please save the commentary for the editorial page.

PUT ON A HAPPY FACE

And I could also do without these grim, mock-serious facial expressions and sad voices the television-news people affect when reporting these so-called tragedies. Diane Sawyer is one of the worst offenders. She lowers her voice dramatically and puts on this really sad face and tells you all about the baby who died in a washing machine. If you weren’t listening carefully, you’d think the goddamn “tragedy” happened to her. Is that good? I don’t think so. Just let me have the news, please; I’ll get Meryl Streep to handle the sad faces.

THOUGHTS ON “THOUGHTS”

Another empty sentiment concerning the death of people; you hear it on the news, and you hear it in real life: “Our thoughts are with the family. “What exactly does that mean? Sympathies I can understand; prayers, as ineffective as they are, I can understand. But thoughts? Why thoughts? What kind of thoughts? Just thoughts? Like, “Gee, he’s dead”? How does that help?

When first reporting on Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease, one newslady a