How do you stack up against the staff of “60 Minutes”? Let’s play 15 Questions and find out.
Your challenge: spot what’s wrong in these excerpts from the CBS newsmagazine. This is an open-book exam, so feel free to consult a grammar (or grampa), a stylebook, even the Internet. Take your time, but no more than 60 minutes.
1) “Ed Hayes says neither Casso nor Kaplan have any credibility.” (Jan. 8, 2006.)
Have should be has; two singular subjects joined by nor require a singular verb.
2) “The third man at the scene, whom prosecutors alleged held a rope around her neck, took the stand in his own defense, and was acquitted.” (Dec. 4, 2005)
Treat alleged like said. So whom should be who. Prosecutors alleged he held a rope; you wouldn’t say, “Prosecutors alleged him held a rope.” Nope.
3) “She was big box-office, made a total of 50 movies.” (April 3, 2005.)
Delete a total of. Without it, the sentence means the same, except that now it’s leaner. Strunk and White tell us in their “Elements of Style”: “Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words … for the same reason a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
4) “He got a group of wealthy investors to cough up at least $5 million each, and sunk the money, about 450 million, in the market.” (Nov. 13, 2005.)
Sink is an irregular verb. Its past tense is sank, not sunk. (Strunk is another matter.)
5) “The Brooklyn Bridge was built in 1869. It’s still one of the best-looking things on Earth.” (Oct. 9, 2005.)
Work on the bridge began in 1869. It was completed in 1883. Thing is something I was taught to avoid. My teacher had a thing about it.
6) “Now, with a pension of $124,000 a year, we’re not going to hold a tag sale for Fritz Hollings.” (Dec. 12, 2004.)
Whose pension is it, the correspondent’s or Hollings’? Also: tag sale, according to my dictionary, is a sale of “used household belongings, with prices typically marked on labels affixed to the items.” Tag day is what the correspondent meant: “A day on which collectors for a charitable fund solicit contributions, giving each contributor a tag” to wear. Suggested revision of the script: “No one need hold a tag day for Fritz Hollings. He gets a yearly pension of $124,000.”
7) “One reason Bollywood films have such universal appeal is because they’re squeaky clean, no sex scenes, not even kissing.” (Jan. 2, 2005.)
Because means “for the reason that.” So reason is because is redundant. And so is reason why. Better: “Bollywood films have wide appeal because they’re squeaky clean…”
8) “It was only in 2002, Golan says, that an eminent scholar happened to see the ossuary at his home and told him what the writing could mean. Golan sprung into action.” (Dec. 19, 2004.)
On reading that, a copy editor or a producer should have sprung into action. The reason: the preferred past tense of spring is sprang, not sprung.
9) “Chicago, sure Chicago, hog butcher to the world.” (Jan. 2, 2005.)
Carl Sandburg is often misquoted, as he is there. In his poem “Chicago,” Sandburg said, “Hog butcher for the world.” For.
10) “And he pointed out that in the week since he resigned his job, as the AOL Time Warner stock dove yet again, he lost another quarter-billion dollars.” (Feb. 5, 2003.)
Lost money? Until a shareholder sells, he hasn’t lost one cent. Delete the before AOL. No matter how many broadcasters say dove, the past tense of dive is dived. “The Associated Press Broadcast News Handbook” says no to dove, as do stylebooks of the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Canada’s Globe and Mail. As Paul R. Martin of the Wall Street Journal told the staff (about a different misuse), “The anything-is-right-if-you-do-it-wrong-often-enough attitude is a disservice to everyone.”
11) “He knew enough to design a weapon that today is used by the armed forces of 35 different countries.” (Jan 9, 2005.)
Delete different. All countries are different. No two countries are the same.
12) “There’s one-point-five million gallons of water on that stage.” (Feb. 20, 2005.)
Point is not conversational. Basic rule for broadcast newswriting: write the way you talk. People talking about that water would most likely say, “There are a million and a half gallons…”
13) “And whether you call them echo boomers, generation Y or millennials, they already make up nearly a third of the U.S. population and spend $170 billion a year of theirs and their parents’ money…” (Sept. 4, 2005.)
Theirs should be their. Or their own.
14) “It’s the latest movie by professional provocateur Michael Moore, and it’s a take-no-prisoners indictment of the Bush administration.” (June 27, 2004.)
Take no prisoners? That cliché should be locked up and put away — for life.
15) “He’s written five full-length symphonies and — listen to this — he’s 12 years old.” (Nov. 28, 2004.)
I am listening. And please don’t speak to me in the imperative. I’m not a dog. On the same program, another correspondent said, “At first, he [not that 12-year-old] was arrested for espionage, aiding the enemy, mutiny and sedition, but the charges were reduced to — get this — adultery and downloading pornography on a government computer.” Get this! Sounds like Tony Soprano as he thumps one of his thugs in the chest to stress a point. And Tony’s one crude dude.
If you got 11 to 15 right, you’re a champ; 6 to 10 right, you’re a contender; 1 to 5, you’re a comer. But if you got none right, you’re not a goner; you matched the “60” Minutemen.
Mervin Block, a newswriting coach, is the author of “Writing Broadcast News — Shorter, Sharper Stronger.” His tips and articles are at http://www.mervinblock.com. You can reach him (or sign up for his free tips list) at merblo@aol.com.
