OCR Text |
Show Newspaper English. (Washington Herald.) The writer who, in the October .lumber .lum-ber of the University Magazine, criticises criti-cises the American newspaper press because of its alleged overuse of stock words and phrases is not sustained by the facts. Not only do we seldom see, nowadays, such expressions as "yellow "yel-low metal," fiery element," "palatial hostelries," "speckled beauties," "finny tribe," etc., to which the writer in question refers, but those other old stand-bys of a few years ago, "the fire laddies responded promptly," "great excitement prevails" and "if caught he will be lynched," are almost al-most never observed in the columns of any city newspaper and seldom in the journals published in the smaller towns. If they do appear in a newspaper news-paper known to be carefully edited ordinarily, or-dinarily, one may be certain that they are used ironically, or that the fifth assistant city or telegraph editor has been "on the desk," and that all the copy readers are in love, or in debt, or in some other trouble that makes it impossible for them to keep their minds on their work. Even the rawest raw-est of cub reporters soon learns to avoid such bromides as those mentioned. men-tioned. Indeed, instructions on that point are usually among the first given him. Considering the remarkable pace that must be maintained in daily newspaper news-paper offices, we think we are justified in saying that America has a right to be proud of the quality of the English employed by her representative publications pub-lications of that class. We believe that in this respect as in all others the United States press will compare more favorably with the foremost daily journals jour-nals of England, or, for that matter, with many of the "popular" magazines and books of the present day, in the making of which there is no necessity for hurry. |