The Word Cloud

Today's drivel is about verbal redundancy in the media. Interestingly, for those that find this stuff interesting, it's quite tame (profanity-wise). Read on MacDuff...

It has come to my attention that news copy of late has been under-utilising essential padding. It is critical to all involved that any story worth telling in ten words or less is suitably extended with semi-non relational factets and non-interesting bon-mot’s until said ten words becomes a page filler. For example, I was appalled this week to have been under-informed re the new Labour party leader and it’s affect on those around. It is clear that the phrase “David Milliband refused to be drawn upon his brother, Ed’s, success; saying no more than ‘it was his time to shine’” is far too succinct to be of any value to the ignorant masses and it is our duty as intelligent and diligent informers to make sure there is no ambiguity or confusion on the part of the reader.

To this end, the above noted phrase fails in so many ways; who is David Milliband? Who is Ed Milliband? What success? Who’s time was it to shine? And last but most importantly where is the annoying rider that must accompany all proper nouns just in case someone has never ever seen the news suddenly, and probably unexpectedly, catches something out of the corner of their eye. A good example is “Arsene Wenger, who faces a one match sideline ban imposed by the FA for harassing a referee after his side drew fifteen seconds after extra time was up.” Now the ignorant masses are fully informed as to exactly who Arsene Wenger, who faced a one match sideline ban imposed by the FA for harassing a referee after his side drew fifteen seconds after extra time was up, actually is, what he is up to and why. Do you see what I did there? The real power of this concept is now being exposed; it is mutable. I can now pad my sports copy for the next decade (subject to Arsene Wenger, who faced a one match sideline ban imposed by the FA for harassing a referee after his side drew fifteen seconds after extra time was up, not doing anything more elaborate) with that phrase. Once Arsene Wenger, who faces a one match sideline ban imposed by the FA for harassing a referee after his side drew fifteen seconds after extra time was up, actually performs the ban we can then go into past tense and in future copy we can add the term “who once faced... ” yada yada yada.

With this in mind, I return to the main focus of this article and the phrase “David Milliband refused to be drawn upon his brother, Ed’s, success; saying no more than ‘it was his time to shine’”. We must ensure that the reader is in no doubt as to who and what is happening. Ergo it is necessary to clarify that David Milliband narrowly beat his brother Ed Milliband in the race to be Labour party leader. It is that simple. Therefore the copy should have read;

“David Milliband, who was narrowly beaten by his brother Ed Milliband to become Labour party leader, refused to be drawn upon his brother Ed Milliband, who narrowly beat his brother David Milliband to become Labour party leader’s, success, by narrowly beating his brother David Milliband to become Labour party leader. David Milliband, who was narrowly beaten by his brother Ed Milliband to become Labour party leader, said no more than ‘it was his (sic.)(Ed Milliband, who narrowly beat his brother David Milliband to become Labour party leader) time to shine.’ (As Labour party leader... after narrowly beating his brother David... Milliband.)”

Now the sharp tongued of you in the readership of this column will spot an obvious flaw in the above statement; when describing David Milliband (who was narrowly beaten by his brother Ed Milliband to become Labour party leader) we use the term Ed Milliband (who narrowly beat his brother David Milliband to become Labour party leader) without the rider “who narrowly beat his brother David Milliband to become Labour party leader”. This of course is essential otherwise the phrase would just look silly.

Next week, we look at the veteran Indian politician Atal Behari Vajpayee and his relationship with his mother in a vain attempt to make this column look cosmopolitan.