We used to have the worldwide breathless round-the-clock vigils when great heads of state were in trouble and that was that. Now we have them for every child who tumbles down a well.
That's not to denigrate the personal tragedy of the child and its family. But if you go over the top for everything, what's left when you really need to go over the top? Someone in a coma "fighting for his life", that's what. In a less media-saturated age, he would have been clinging to life, or some such construction tending more to the neutral.
I shout at the news, too, but from the vantage point of my own -isms. How come any time Bush is about to announce some good news, the verb to describe it is never "announces," or "praises," but "trumpets" or "touts", verbs that carry the baggage of flackery? Why can't our allegedly objective media find some objective words to describe what they're describing?
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We used to have the worldwide breathless round-the-clock vigils when great heads of state were in trouble and that was that. Now we have them for every child who tumbles down a well.
That's not to denigrate the personal tragedy of the child and its family. But if you go over the top for everything, what's left when you really need to go over the top? Someone in a coma "fighting for his life", that's what. In a less media-saturated age, he would have been clinging to life, or some such construction tending more to the neutral.
I shout at the news, too, but from the vantage point of my own -isms. How come any time Bush is about to announce some good news, the verb to describe it is never "announces," or "praises," but "trumpets" or "touts", verbs that carry the baggage of flackery? Why can't our allegedly objective media find some objective words to describe what they're describing?