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3869550Oregon Exchanges, Volume 8 — Number 1

Oregon Exchanges

For the Newspaper Folk of the State of Oregon

Vol. 8

Eugene, Oregon, October, 1924

No. 1

WRITERS URGED TO WAGE CONSTANT BATTLE FOR BREVITY

By A COPYREADER

[The Author of this excellent article on newspaper English desires to remain anonymous for the present.--Editor.]

NEWSWRITING, as wit, has brevity as its soul. Make it brief, make it snappy, are admonitions dinned constantly into the ears of reporters. And when the reporter has made it as brief and snappy as he finds possible, the copy editor takes out the multitudinous verbosities to make it literally brief.

While lack of brevity is an outstanding indictment against the average reporter, others of equal importance are on file. Incorrect usage and violations of rules of grammar are found daily in copy submitted by reporters. For these no defense exists. In addition noun phrases constantly are used in stories where verb phrases would add strength; phrases of several words are used where one word would make the sentence pithy; words with one definite meaning frequently are used to denote a subordinate meaning; rules of style on individual papers are broken. These are among the more important charges against Mr. Average Reporter.

TYPICAL BITS OF WASTE

Concrete examples of various branches of the —shall we say law?—of brevity, of good usage and of grammatical rules will aid in this discussion.

First, brevity—Don’t say, “Due to the fact that the office was closed . . .” Say, “Because the office was closed . ."

Don’t say, “Figures that have been compiled show . . .” Say, “ Figures compiled show . . .” or “Compilations of figures show . . .” Don’t say, “At the present time . . ." Say, “At present . . .” Don’t say, “At the time that the boat was built . . .” Say, “ When the boat was built . . .” Don't say, “Due to the fact that . . .” Say, “Since . . .” Don’t say, “For the purpose of . . .” Say, “To.. .” _ Don’t say, “Since that time . “Since . . .” Don’t say, “In the direction of . . .” Say, “Toward . . .” Don’t say, “Was present at the time . . .” Say, “Was present when . . .” Don’t say, “Despite the fact that . . .” Say, “Although . . .” Don’t say, “Under process of construction.. .” Say, “Under construction . . .” Don’t say, “In a clever manner . . .” Say, “Cleverly . . . ' Don’t say, “In order to.. “To.. ."

THE UNNECESSARY QUALIFICATION

Use of qualifying phrases which express only what the noun itself expresses, is unnecessary. therefore superfluous, therefore in error. To say, “The year 1923.. .” or “the state of Oregon . . .” or “the month of July . . .” is as banal as to say, “Her baby son is a boy.”

Many reporters discover, and their discovery is not new, that it is easy to start a sentence with “There were . . ." or “There are . . .” The main objection to this form is that it is sloppy, nothing less. Why not, instead of saying, “There were 75 persons present,” say, “Seventy five persons were present”?

In the second place, news Writing should be as strong, as pithy, as possible. The use of active voice constructions and verbs leads to a healthier form than the use of passive constructions and noun phrases. As examples, two sentences, showing the various uses.

“The retiring president received a watch as a token of the members’ esteem.” How much better that is than “The president was made the recipient of a watch..."

VERB OUTPUNCHES NOUN

What is meant by using verbs for nouns is shown by the following sentences: “The committeee plans the compilation of figures . . . ”

That is weaker than to say, “The committee plans to compile figures . . . ”

Under the third heading we come to incorrect usages, yet usages that appear popular. To say, “The man was awarded a prize . . . " i s incorrect, yet i s used so constantly by those who should know better that i t i s not commonly classed as an error. Properly the sentence should read, “ A prize was awarded to the man,” for i t i s obvious the man was not awarded. The word “over ” i s one that frequently i s used incorrectly. It i s patently an ad verb of place, yet the sentence “Over 200 were present,” i s commonly found in news columns. For once brevity i s sac rificed for accuracy. Use “More than 200 . . . ” The fourth heading i s the matter of style, which varies quite as often as there are newspapers, and which frequently i s different on opposite pages of the same paper, for no good reason. To outline points of style would be useless for that reason. However, to observe rules of style when working for a newsp'aper i s of inestimable aid to that corps of time ruled workers, the copy editors. Less important than errors in speech, they ap pear quite as important in the eyes of conscientious copy readers. GRAMMAR ALSO SUFFERS Finally we come to breaches of well defined rules of grammar, which are al together too common on the part of Mr. Average Reporter. In recent observation, and this discussion i s confined to exam ples culled from stories read on a copy desk in recent months, errors in grammar come for the most part under the heading of tense. How often have you read such a sen tence as this: “Mr. Brown said that he will attend the convention”? Obviously what Mr. Brown said was, “I will attend the convention.” Then, in reporting him in indirect form, Mr. Reporter should say, “Mr. Brown said that he would at tend the convention.” The rule i s that when the principal verb i s in the past, subordinate verbs also should take a past form. Don’t say, “The man said that he i s a Norwegian.” Say, “The man said he was a Norwegian.” The best and eas iest rule to determine whether the sen tence i s correct i s to “listen” to it. Does i t sound right? If i t doesn’t, one can be almost certain that i t i s incorrect. The pronoun “none ” i s singular, al though used frequently, and incorrectly, as plural. “None was injured,” i s cor rect. The word means no one, which nat urally i s singular. In this discussion, which necessarily has been brief, only the surface of the subject has been scratched. Nothing has" been said of the practice of using abso lute adjectives in a comparative sense, such as “more perfect . . . ” and similar phrases. Nothing has been said of the constant repetition of the adverb “very.” These and a thousand rival superfluous words and phrases could be cited. Perfection i s not easy of attainment, but attention to concise, snappy, staccato, ear-pleasing writing will lead far on the

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STATE ASSOCIATION'S OWN DEPARTMENT

HAL E. HOSS, President

G. LANSING HURD, Secretary

The 1925 Convention

THE Tillamook meeting went on record accepting the invitation of Grants Pass for the next year convention. There was a proviso attached to the motion at the suggestion of the president, that the meeting be held at Grants Pass only in the event the proposed Pacific Coast convention could not be arranged. A recent letter from Fred Kennedy, manager of the Washington Press Association, advises that his organization is prepared to meet in the joint convention at Portland, and definite plans for the meeting would be worked out provided some of the other states were heard from favorably.

At this time, then, we are not prepared to state whether or not the Portland meeting will come to pass, but we should look forward with a great deal of interest to the possibilities of such a meeting, with a subsequent meeting to accept the Grants Pass invitation. As soon as anything definite is learned from the various committees working on the plan, the field will be advised, through a bulletin, or through the next issue of Oregon Exchanges.

Advertising Rates

IN a bulletin issued from the president's office late in August, we called the publishers' attention to the N. E. A. rate schedule, and asked you all to get your rate. In response to the bulletin, several Oregon newspaper men wrote in and asked what the recommended rates were. Requests to the St. Paul office of the N. E. A. brought us a few copies of the advertising committee reports, and these were sent to the inquiring newspapers. However, in order that the rates might be available, we are submitting them here with, and trust that they will help put starch in some of the editorial back-bones throughout the state.

The N. E. A . schedule of rates for country Weeklies is as follows:

For 500 or less circulation 25c. :For 1000 or less circulation 30c. :For 1500 or less circulation 35c. :For 2000 or less circulation 40c. :For 2500 or less circulation 45c. :For 3000 or less circulation 48c. :For 3500 or less circulation 51c.

Campaign Advertising

SOME of you may have thought that the little paragraph stuck in the last Bulletin about this being a campaign where printer's ink would be used was a shot in the dark, but even as early as August this office was busy on plans to have the country press recognized by the various political elements. A uniform letter, setting forth the advantages of display campaigns in the Oregon press and telling of the influence of the news papers, was sent all the heads of the political issues in the state.

Oregon Exchanges/Volume 8/Number 1

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