Journalese

Journalese is the artificial or hyperbolic, and sometimes over-abbreviated, language regarded as characteristic of the popular media. Joe Grimm, formerly 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."

Examples

• "The governor Thursday announced ..." (date used as adverb)
• "The Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of John F. Kennedy ..." (date used as adjective)
• "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." (multiple mixed metaphors)
• See "a bus plunged into a gorge" for a common type of gap-filler article.
• "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." (genitive of placename instead of preposition)
• "Rioting and mayhem ..." (this example has led to popular misunderstanding causing the word "mayhem" to change its main meaning.)
• "Attack" to mean "criticise", because it typesets into less space in headlines. This may cause ambiguity if a physical or military attack is possible between the parties named. "Slam" is also used this way, as is, increasingly, "blast".
• "Foes ink pact", "Cops nab crooks after heist", "The new station is slated to open...." (rare or archaic words chosen over more commonly used words in order to save space)
• "The 1990s saw an increase in crime...." instead of the simpler "Crime increased in the 1990s...." (the use of "saw" to avoid using the past tense of "increase")
• "Funnyman" as a synonym for a comedian or other light entertainer.
• "Quizzed" used to mean "questioned".

See also

• Headlinese
• News style

Further reading

• Fritz Spiegl: Keep Taking the Tabloids. What the Papers Say and How They Say It (1983)
• Joe Grimm: "There is no ease in journalese" Archived from the original.

External links

• John Leo: "Do you speak journalese?"