Redundancy

[wicked_danu]

Are newspaper editors really any good? One expects them to have an advanced knowledge of the language of the newspaper, but the editors of Gulf News, the paper that I love to hate, don't seem to have that.

In an article on the reasons for decline of the Muslim world, the writer, Hussein Haqqani writes,
and the melons were contaminated with the HIV

Comments

[romeohotel]

Angry at the newspapers, or how colloquial English has changed?

My editor during my brief stint writing for the Eagle was very quick to point out that we had to write at approximately a 4th to 6th grade level - any more complex and your readers wouldn't get it. Sigh. Same thing happening here.

[wicked_danu]

Angry at the newspapers, most definitely.
And when did colloquial English change? I was under the impression that language changes for the better, to avoid repititions and redundancy.. the opposite seems to be happening here.

Same thing happening here.

I'm not sure what you mean..

[romeohotel]

Angry at the newspapers, most definitely.
And when did colloquial English change? I was under the impression that language changes for the better, to avoid repititions and redundancy.. the opposite seems to be happening here.

I would not say that language always changes for the better; I would just say it changes. For example, I do not consider the use of "ite" instead of "ight" to be a change for the better - let alone many the liberties with spelling and grammar that IMs and blogs are now making "acceptable." British English speakers will probably complain about my lack of the letter u in words like color and honor as a change for the worse.

In this case, PIN and ATM have become words and not acronyms. Honestly, it took me a few minutes to realize that ATM really did mean automated teller machine - Americans just do not speak that way anymore.

[wicked_danu]

If it has become a word, why do people still say H-I-V, instead of just 'hive' or something like that? The whole point of acronyms is to make long phrases shorter by saying only the first alphabet of the words.
Even if they've become words, I think it's still pretty redundant to say HIV virus.

More importantly, if Americans don't speak a certain way, it may not be the case in the rest of the world. I know Americans and Brits who are bigger grammar Nazis than I am and probably wouldn't make the mistake of saying 'ATM machine'.

[shaz_15]

'Don't enter your PIN number in an ATM machine or you'll get the HIV virus'

HahahAHAHAHhahahaHAHAahahah

That's not the first time I've seen errors like that in the papers. It's quite hilarious really.

[wicked_danu]

Well that line wasn't in the paper, but it's still funny :)

[adidi]

ha! :)