Thursday, May 27, 2010

, != &

Today's New Zealand Herald carries, as the subheading on its lead story, "Prison tower looming over motorway and schools offends mayor, community".

I've always hated the hideous American journalistic habit of using a comma to mean "and". In this case it's not even necessary to save space - the line, as printed, is about three characters shy. But I've always been able to comfort myself that it's only an Americanism, and civilised newspapers don't do it.

So much for comfort. Next thing I know they'll be talking about what "we reported May 27th". And the day I see the word "ouster", that's the day I stop buying this crappy paper.

2 comments:

Cian said...

So I see their next article was entitled "Union wants extra pay for holidays not Mondayised".

Mondayised! Seems to just be a Kiwi word. What happened to 'falling on a Monday'? It appears to have fallen by the wayside.

vet said...

"Mondayised" looks (and sounds) pretty gruesome, I'll grant you. But it will only annoy me if it starts being used regularly. I seem to have this internal buffer zone, which means I can accept a new usage a few times before I start to object to it.

I know how hard it can be to come up with the right word or phrase under pressure. I guess it's only when I figure they've had enough time to think of how to do it properly, that I start to hold it against them.