A Guide To Crisis Journalese
March, 1987
In recent years, I have become fascinated with journalese, the professional jargon of journalists. It is an amusing but often deceptive tongue that requires careful translation. For instance, there is the way journalists describe people: Ebullient usually means crazy, outgoing means noisy, Rubenesque is fat, spry means not in a wheelchair and ruddy-faced means drunk. If you are called crusty in print, it means the writer thinks you are obnoxious.There are also rules concerning words, phrases and...
