Journalese

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Journalese is the artificial or hyperbolic, and sometimes over-abbreviated, language regarded as characteristic of the popular media. Joe Grimm of the Detroit Free Press likened journalese to a "stage voice": "We write journalese out of habit, sometimes from misguided training, and to sound urgent, authoritative and, well, journalistic. But it doesn't do any of that."

[edit] Examples of journalese

"The governor Thursday ..."

"The Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of John F. Kennedy ..."

"Mean streets and densely wooded areas populated by ever-present lone gunmen ..."

"Negotiators yesterday, in an eleventh-hour decision following marathon talks, hammered out agreement on a key wage provision they earlier had rejected."

"a bus plunged into a gorge"

"Calls this morning for tighter restrictions on the sale of alcohol to immigrants."

"Whoosh … whoosh … whoosh … ka-boooom. That’s the way it was at Wanganui’s Cooks Gardens, for about 15 minutes on Saturday night."

"Rioting and mayhem ..." (this example has also led to the misuse of the word "mayhem")

Copy editors are sometimes afflicted by headlinese.

[edit] Further reading

• Fritz Spiegl: Keep Taking the Tabloids. What the Papers Say and How They Say It (1983)
• The Eleventh Hour

[edit] External links

• John Leo: "Do You Speak Journalese?"
• Joe Grimm: "There Is No Ease in Journalese"

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