OK, this is just sloppy journalism

[winterbadger]

BBC headline: "Ex-Bosnia army chief 'not guilty'"

First line of story: The former chief of the Bosnian Muslim army, Rasim Delic, has pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges at the tribunal in The Hague.

The BBC has gottne much, much worse in its sloppy and unprofessional headline writing, including massive and trivialized use of quotation marks and impenetrably stacked nouns. It's as if there's a contest to see who can convey the least in the smallest amount of words.

In this case, they manage to convey an impression that is simply untrue by using cutesy quotation marking. In fact, it would have taken only six more characters (for which there was plenty of room) to write "Ex-Bosnia army chief pleads not guilty". And they could easily have said "Bosnian general pleads not guilty", thus avoiding the horrific "ex-Bosnia army chief" noun stack (ex- what? ex-Bosnian? clearly not--he's still Bosnian).

Grrr.

Comments

[beckon.livejournal.com]

Thats what you get for reading the BBC, the English really aren't all that good with language.

[winterbadger]

The English are marvelous with language. Shakespeare, Donne, Dryden, Milton, Keats, Austen, Bronte, Hardy, Dickens, Trollope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Houseman, Maugham, Lawrence, Coward, Orwell, Greene, Forster, Woolf, Amis, Fry, Graves, Sayers, Mortimer: these are not the names of people who have trouble with words.

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

Kevin R. Taylor. ;-)

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

But then I'm biased. ;-)

[kevinrtaylor.livejournal.com]

Who's that?

[winterbadger]

Michael Flanders :-)

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

*giggle* It was just his Swann song!

Sorry, I had to get that pun out of my system. I'll go away now!

[beckon.livejournal.com]

Having experienced the teaching of the English language through both school systems. (English and American) The American placed a much greater emphasis on correct usage, grammer, etc. then the English did.

This is a first hand experience.

To defend their common tongue with a bunch of notable writers. Is, well, just plain ludicrous.

I'm also not trying to put down the English, with my background that would be silly. The general usage can be quite quaint, funny, and humourous. But I'm not going to live in denial about it.

[winterbadger]

Everyone is welcome to their opinion. I happen to disagree.

You *did* make a general statement that the English aren't all that good with language. In my opinion, that's the ludicrous part of the conversation. You're implying that, on the whole, any and all English people are less capable with language than non English users. To me, that's just silly. Yes, I listed notable writers. I could just as easily have listed television writers, popular/pulp novelists, songwriters, examples of advertising copy. The English as a group are no less good with language than anyone else, in my opinion; in fact, I'd say that the level of use of language in their press, popular fiction, television (and, yes, I have seen plenty of bad UK television as well as the stuff that makes it to PBS), and even sports commentary is mioes ahead of comparable language use in the USA.

But again, that's just an opinion. And, like noses, we all have them, and we all think ours smell better than anyone else's. :-)

[blueinva.livejournal.com]

>the English really aren't all that good with language.

Hmm... Far better than the mess Americans make of it. Some of the worst writing I have ever seen comes from this nation (and we won't even start on the paucity of mainstream American creative writers). BBC web-site writers apart, we English have some of the finest pens in the world in *any* language.

[kevinrtaylor.livejournal.com]

Thats what you get for reading the BBC, the English really aren't all that good with language.

I think what you meant was:

That's what you get for reading the BBC. The English really aren't all that good with language.

;-)

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

Only 4 more characters, actually, since the quotation marks would go away.

Sigh. Idiots.