Media mixups

Chase · Mar 28, 2011

"New York's Bronx Zoo has shut down the World of Reptiles after a poisonous Egyptian cobra went missing Friday afternoon," wrote a news source.

I first noticed how the media has love affairs with phrases and uses them to death: "Went missing" has now been elevated from cute colloquial to the only way to say "is gone." The same with one-on-one (combative) taking the place of one-to-one (a meeting of two people).

The above from a media writer and at least one editor who doesn't know the vast differences between "poisonous" and "venomous."

blacbird · Mar 28, 2011

I've seen far worse.

maestrowork · Mar 28, 2011

How did they know the cobra was Egyptian? Did they check its passport?

Chase · Mar 28, 2011

I saw its passport photo. Hard to tell, as it had on a hoodie.

maestrowork · Mar 28, 2011

It must have slithered like an Egyptian... ♫♬♩

Chase · Mar 28, 2011

Just to be correct, unlike today's media, wasn't "Slither Like an Egyptian" a song by the Bangles?

maestrowork · Mar 28, 2011

The Cincinnati Bangles have a song?

Williebee · Mar 28, 2011

No, that's the Cincinnati BENGALS.

The Cincinnati BANGLES have a clothing accessory shop in a strip mall, down by the river.

maestrowork · Mar 28, 2011

Bengals, Bangles. Like there's a difference.

And how do you strip a mall?

Kateness · Mar 28, 2011

maestrowork said:
Bengals, Bangles. Like there's a difference.

And how do you strip a mall?

Twenty bucks and some loose change

Chase · Mar 28, 2011

It was the Bronx, not Sin City. I think the Bronx Zoo (AKA Big AL's Snake Pit) is what Jacqueline Howett, the world famous "just fine" writer, must have had in mind:

Jacqueline Howett said...

Well what should I expect of anyone associated to Big ALs snake pit and rat hole.

You are a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom.

Kenn · Mar 29, 2011

This implies to me that there was some event on the Friday afternoon, which was cancelled because the cobra was the main attraction and he (or she) hissed off in a hissy.

Chase · Mar 29, 2011

Kenn said:
he (or she) hissed off in a hissy.

Word on the street is the hooded Eqyptian can spit, so he (or she) split.

maestrowork · Mar 29, 2011

I ran out of witty remarks.

Or should I say, my witty remarks went missing?

Chase · Mar 31, 2011

Give a Bronx cheer. The spitting cobra's back in her habitat. If she went missing, then did she return found? Come back present?

Since the media declared her poisonous (rather than venomous), something's lucky she wasn't a lunch. But I wonder if she bit anything?

Sorry, I just went curious.

Jamesaritchie · Apr 1, 2011

What's wrong with "went missing"? I'm an old man, and I can't recall this phrase ever being a colloquialism. As for venomous versus poisonous, my dictionary doesn't know the difference, either.

Chase · Apr 1, 2011

Jamesaritchie said:
What's wrong with "went missing"? I'm an old man, and I can't recall this phrase ever being a colloquialism.

I'm old, too. Where I grew up long ago, it was always "She is missing," not "She went missing."

However, my point isn't that it's wrong. It's more like "one-on-one" replacing "one-to-one" in media-speak. My point is, like "one-on-one," it's all I see on TV closed captions, because the media's in love with the phrase.

It's also like all the crime show writers now have everyone saying, "This will narrow down the list of suspects." I'm seeing the phrase with "down" following "narrow" as becoming only way to say it.

Just struck me as strange. Maybe not.

Hallen · Apr 1, 2011

One-on-One is also business speak for a meeting between a supervisor and an employee. Comes from basketball. And probably sex prior to that.

Personally, "productize" is my favorite. And redundant repeated words.

Chase · Apr 1, 2011

Hallen said:
Comes from basketball.

Yep, one-on-one became the popular b-ball phrase in the 1960s for the strategy other than zone defense. Then the two-player half-court game. Always adverarial, very combative.

As you say, now it's a darling of the media for any meeting of two people. Press "Like" is you agree.

Since the fifteenth century, "through and through" has meant thoroughly, pervasive, permeating. Now several crime shows a week make it the buzz-word for in-and-out gunshot wounds.

Kenn · Apr 3, 2011

Chase said:
Give a Bronx cheer. The spitting cobra's back in her habitat...

I suppose she must have recoiled in horror at all the negative publicity.

DreamWeaver · Apr 3, 2011

I find "went missing" entirely appropriate for the snake story. They didn't know what happened. Any variation of "got lost" or "was lost" that I can think of implies a specific action on the snake's or the keepers' parts. While that may have happened, we don't know--and in journalism school in the 70s, I was taught to never state things I didn't know.

For an extreme example, we couldn't write, "The Pope likes to pray"; we had to write, "The Pope says he likes to pray." After all, we're not mindreaders <G>. It still bugs me when I see newspaper writing that gets inside someone's head with assumptions, no matter how valid they appear to be...

Meh. I'm just an old fogey, I guess.

Chase · Apr 3, 2011

DreamWeaver said:
I find "went missing" entirely appropriate for the snake story. They didn't know what happened. Any variation of "got lost" or "was lost" that I can think of implies a specific action on the snake's or the keepers' parts. While that may have happened, we don't know--and in journalism school in the 70s, I was taught to never state things I didn't know.

I entirely agree with your instructors. Journalism must have been tiring for the fingers back then when you pressed marks into clay tablets. Just kidding. The '70s were my college years, grad school in the '80s.

Yet, agreeing as I do, I see "went" as an action the snake performed, as in he went to the bathroom or she went to school. To me it implies intent. As you point out, what if she (the snake) were stolen or eaten by a king cobra?

It strikes me (almost as good as Kenn's pun?) that it would have been more appropriate for the unknown to report that she was missing or had disappeared.

Another media gaffe I see these days is "begs the question." On TV news and dramas, I see the phrase as a lofty way to say "queried" or "ask a question," when the actual learned meaning of "beg the question" is to evade an issue through a deceitful misdirection.

DreamWeaver · Apr 3, 2011

OK, I give you that (even after the crack about cuneiform

). Simply "is missing" would be fine and wouldn't imply causal actions on either the snake's or the keepers' parts.

And I completely agree with you about 'begs the question'.

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