As reporting verges on lunacy
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A thoroughly amusing Cape Times front page story helped dull the pain I felt after another highly successful Sunday night at Caprice. Speaking of which, I must just say that the girl/guy ratio was fantastic last night. I see we have also received some new recruits who have made the transition from the younger La Med Sunday night crowd. Welcome, little angels.
Back to the front page. It is all too common for local journalists to balls up their articles so what I'm about to say is certainly not a revelation. It is funny, nonetheless. The headline was "Get ready for more blackouts". Fine. We then kicked off the ENTIRE newspaper with a beautifully constructed sentence. Now bear in mind, this is the first sentence of the front page MAIN story for the day. The first sentence of the entire newspaper:
"Rolling blackouts could become
an ongoing feature of life in the Western Cape"
..COULD BECOME AN ONGOING FEATURE OF LIFE?
Seriously, are you fucking kidding me? Who talks like that? Surely "Way of life" isn't that hard to put down in writing? Surely it looks and reads perfectly? Even a "part of life" would have been fine. But FEATURE OF LIFE. Well, I'm blessed! It just reads so very very badly. Do you not see that? Does no one proof read this stuff? (Something I wish I had)
But there was more to come. Our boy reports that "A LOOSE BOLT was partly responsible for the shutdown of a NUCLEAR REACTOR at Koeberg which caused two power cuts in mid-November for about five hours and 30 minutes each" I am struggling to believe that a loose bolt was partly to blame for the whole of the Western Cape blacking out. Even if it was, DON'T TELL US - IT'S TOO FUCKING RIDICULOUS! I tell you what, I have a brilliant idea to stop these obscene power cuts. Get some pliers, walk around the nuclear power plant and TIGHTEN ALL THE FUCKING BOLTS!
A loose bolt.
Similar to the one that caused the Great Western Cape Blackout.
I heard a beauty the other day from 'the simple one' that does the morning show on that numerically titled radio station. Shame. I can't remember what the topic was, but they were talking about how something or other should be drilled into kids' heads. They were saying that it was essential for kids to be taught this particular thing. The Dumb One mentioned that these kinds of things should be "THRUSHED into kids' heads".
THRUSHED
It doesn't take a genius to know that thrush is generally one of two things. It is either a kind of bird, or something to do with the vagina. Neither of which are particularly handy when trying to administer something to a child's head. He obviously meant to use "thrash", but there was no mistaking the change of vowel.
This is an ongoing problem amongst journalists and radio figures (generally speaking). I'll tell you what happens. It's quite simple. I've seen these people work. I see their minds work and it is so sad to watch. You've seen it before, but maybe you didn't look into it. Let me explain...
What they do is they listen to other people talking around them. Like babies learning to talk, they pick up new words and try them out. They hear more intelligent people using bigger words. But HERE is where the problem comes in. They don't realise that the bigger words that are being used around them are ACTUALLY being used for a REASON. It's not to show off. Bigger words are used instead of simpler words PURELY to be more descriptive. The smart people have, over time, learnt these words properly. The simpletons think it is a way of making other people think they're clever. What happens? They overhear someone talking about "thrashing" something into someone's head and the next thing you know they're trying to get something into a child's head using a vagina!
Keep it simple, kids, you're begging the question.
Seth Rotherham
Editor
2oceansvibe.com
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