IT IS PRETTY SAD THAT a comic with a newsroom motif is a bad example of English usage.
I would object to the incorrect usage even if the cartoon was not Shoe and was not based, at least in part, on a newspaper (or perhaps blog) editorial department.
Yes, I know it’s just a cartoon, and I know the the cartoon above makes a point, but . . .
I CAN UNDERSTAND tv talking heads (and their script writers) not knowing the difference between robbery and burglary. I object when I hear the terms misused, but I “consider the source” and don’t (usually) complain to the station. (It would do no good in any event.)
Just for the record,
- Burglary is typically defined as the unlawful entry into almost any structure (not just a home or business) with the intent to commit any crime inside (not just theft/larceny). No physical breaking and entering is required; the offender may simply trespass through an open door. Unlike robbery, which involves use of force or fear to obtain another person's property, there is usually no victim present during a burglary.1
Robbery is The taking of money or goods in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, by force or intimidation.2
Theft is used widely to refer to crimes involving the taking of a person's property without their permission. But theft has a very broad legal meaning which may encompass more than one category, and multiple degrees, of crimes. Theft is often defined as the unauthorized taking of property from another with the intent to permanently deprive them of it. Within this definition lie two key elements:
1) a taking of someone else's property; and
2) the requisite intent to deprive the victim of the property permanently.3
Criminals BURGLARIZE property; they ROB people. THEFT is common to both.
EVERY journalist and editor, real or pseudo, should know the difference between the foregoing words. Given that “back in the day” (pre-Internet) editorial areas had at least one unabridged dictionary and multiple copies of “collegiate”-type dictionaries, copy editors expected reporters to use the correct word for the crime.
Unlike “dump” vs. “landfill,” there is no ambiguity. (Strictly writing, a “landfill” is a dump that’s covered with dirt.
I’m not sure today’s children read or even look at the comics. Newspapers have almost disappeared, and with them the comics page(s). No one reads the comics on radio (what’s a radio?) a la Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia4 during the newspaper delivery drivers’ strike of 1945. There ARE several comics web sites that host many comics, some even known to grandparents (e.g., Gasoline Alley, Alley Oop) and some new ones, many with a political agenda. But comics seem of no interest to today’s child, “married” as they are to Netflix and YouTube on their smart phones. If it’s not animated, it won’t hold a child’s attention.
It probably is better that the minors DON’T read today’s comics if the comics’ writers are as casual about the language as proven with Shoe. Our children – of all ages – are, by and large, language lazy. (I have two who have degrees in English; one teaches and the other traded his teaching job for a badge – less paperwork and politics, he claims.)
When words are misused they lose their meaning or their meaning, since English is a “living language,” changes to agree with the misuse. Case in point: “dinner” vs. “supper.”5.
How many know the difference between a “spade” and a “shovel”?
The answer is NOT Who cares?
Sources
1. http://tinyurl.com/yd4trrmp
2. http://tinyurl.com/y7z8grat
3. http://tinyurl.com/yb7aunx2
4. http://tinyurl.com/ya8dtdbv
5. http://www.dictionary.com/e/supper-vs-dinner/
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment