As I understand it, the department in Cornell University will not deal
so much with actual newspaper experience as it will with construction
and style in writing. This is certainly a good move, for we must
admit that we can improve very greatly our style and the purity of
our English. For instance, I select an exchange at random, and on the
telegraphic page I find the details of a horrible crime. It seems that
an old lady, who lived by herself almost, and who had amassed between
$16 and $17, was awakened by an assassin, dragged from her bed and
cruelly murdered. The large telegraph headline reads: "Drug from her bed
and murdered!" This is incorrect in orthography, syntax and prosody, bad
in form and inelegant in style. Carefully parsing the word drug as it
appears here, I find that it does not agree with anything in number,
gender or person. I do not like to criticise the style of others when I
know that my own is so faulty, but I am sure that the word drug should
not be used in this way.
Take the following, also, from the Kansas correspondence of the
Statesville (N.C.) _Landmark_:
"There were several bad accidents in and around Clear Water during
my absence from home. The saddest one was the shooting of one Peter
Peterson by his father. They were out rabbit-hunting in the snow. A
rabbit got up and started to run. The son was in a swag of a place and
the father was taking aim at the rabbit. The son at the same time
was trying to get a shot at it and, not knowing that his father was
shooting, ran between the rabbit and his father and was killed dead,
falling on the snow with his gun grasped in his hands and never moved.
He still carried that pleasant smile which he had on, in expectation of
shooting that jack rabbit, when put in the grave. Wheat is selling at
about 60 cents; corn, 40 to 50 cents; fat hogs, gross, 44 to 41; fat
steers, 41; butcher's stock, 2 cents."
It is hard to say just exactly wherein this is faulty, but something is
the matter with it. I would like to get an expression of opinion from
those who take an interest in such things, as to whether the fault is in
orthoepy, orthography, anatomy, obituary or price current, or whether it
consists in writing several features too closely in the same paragraph.
It would also be a good idea to establish a chair for advertisers in
some practical college, in order that they might run in for a few hours
and learn how to write an advertisement so that it would express in the
most direct way what they desired to state. Here is an advertisement,
for instance, which is given exactly as written and punctuated:
Mrs. Dr. Edwards,
THE GREAT WESTERN CLAIRVOYANT,
Has arrived, and-will remain only a short time. Call at once at HOTEL
WINDSOR, 119, 121 and 123 East State street, Room 19, third floor.
Please take elevator.
The greatest and most natural born, and highly celebrated, and
well-known all over the country, Clairvoyant, now traveling on the road,
and Wonder from the Pacific coast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account