OCR Text |
Show HEADLINE ENGLISH. Professors of English held a convention con-vention in Kansas City a few day.s ago and among other things discussed discuss-ed the influence of newspapers in modifying mo-difying the speech of the people. As might have been expected, some felt that this influence was good, while others thought it terrible. In their search for short words which will fit in the limited space available to them, writers of newspaper news-paper headlines have developed a peculiarly pe-culiarly effective, though sometimes inelegant, form of expression. In the headlines an investigation, of which there are so many, is called a probe, because five letters are easier to handle than 13. Similarly a collision is a "crash"; an agreement is a "pact"; to denounce is to "flay"; an explosion is a "blast"; an athletic contest is a "tilt," and so' on. On the sport page "journalese" does its worst. Deploring what he considers the evil effects of newspaper English, Dr. Hopkins of the University of Kansas, said that teachers were duty-bound to take a stand against it, but significantly signifi-cantly added: "In theory that is our stand, but it does us little good to take any stand. We might as well let the language go its way. It will anyway." any-way." And that probably covers all there is to be said on the subject. |