"Hasn't looked back"

I disagree. The lead can reach 20 but be cut to 12 fairly quickly. If the lead is somewhere between 8 and 12 for about 18 minutes of the half but at one point reached 20, saying "led by 20" without giving some kind of context is misleading. And you're going to have to use a few -- what some are trying to call "meaningless' -- words to put in that timeframe or context. And the words will not be meaningless.

There may be better ways to say it --"the lead reached 20 with X:XX left ... " -- but to just say "led by 20" is completely without context.

 

While we're at it ...

"untracked"

What the hell does that mean? "Joe Blow is trying to get untracked." People obviously use it to refer to someone breaking out of a slump, but it makes no sense to me.

Also, major pet peeve... people who put any score-like numbers before the final score of the game in question.

"Podunk, which was reeling from an 80-45 loss last week, rallied to beat the Bears, 90-80." Or..
"Podunk trailed 70-40 early in the second half before their stunning comeback for a 90-88 victory."

Yuck.

 

I did discover when "would" is appropriate, courtesy of one AP story:

"Dallas (9-5) will win the NFC East and Jerry Jones will get to host at least one playoff game in his new stadium by following this difficult victory with wins at Washington and at home against Philadelphia."

O rly?

 

Columnists who love to interject "I think" or "I feel" or just go all and say "I".

 

Couldn't agree more, BB. If you absolutely need to chronicle that in your lede, say rallied from a 30-point deficit to win 80-70. Later on you can give the specific score and the time frame to put it in perspective.

Best trick I ever learned: When I got back to the office and began to wirte, my first editor would ask me, "What happened in the game?" So I would tell him in short order and he would say, "Good. Write that."

You can still be creative and get right into what happened.

 

Lone Star:

That's exactly what my editors told me to do back in the day. Helped make Friday nights a lot easier.

 

I missed this when it was first posted. Glad it came back to the top.

I was looking at a restaurant's website yesterday. www.sepiachicago.com

It had two bios -- one of the owner & one of the chef.

Here's an excerpt from each:

It's a horrible phrase -- and you used it each of the two bios you wrote?

Makes me not want to eat there.

 

We decided to go to a different restaurant -- and haven't looked back.

 

now i don't find the first reference to be a problem. the guy made a major change in his career and has no regrets. i think it works fine, here. the second reference is just plain wrong. i'm sure that person has looked back on his successful time in school many times and with great pride.

just sayin, no phrase should be outlawed in all cases. there are times when they can work. could he have said, 'he had no regrets,' and avoided what may be becoming a cliche, i guess. but i think it's fine.

 

What bugged me the most was that they used a phrase like that in both bios. It's so lazy. Do you not know any other cliches?

 

Just throwing this out there, but the following appeared in the much-lauded (and deservedly so) Wright Thompson piece on the missing Ali opponent...

Sweet Jimmy turned and walked off, negotiating the crossties. He never looked back.

"Tell Clay I ain't doing too good," he said.

Is the use of the phrase in this case any better? Not knocking the piece - just a discussion starter.

 

I think it's a lot more acceptable if it's a literal description vs. an overplayed analogy.