Heckuva?

Another one I see more often than I'd like:

Matmen.

I mean, is it really that hard to say "wrestlers?"

 

I've seen "gonna" in local papers, including my own, on three occasions in the past several weeks.

How that was ever allowed - it's not even that "local color" b.s. they feed you - is beyond me.

 

When I was a senior in high school, I was referred to in a newspaper story as, "the veteran thinclad."

Here's something I've noticed lately, though: "Tilt" seems to be making a kind of retro comeback. I'm hearing it on TV, but I'm also starting to see it more in "print," but on paper and on the web. Anybody else noticing this?

 

Tilt is an other word that makes me want to scream.

 

Yeah, I know, but for some reason, the kids are using it in headlines and such that I'm starting to see around...

 

I worked with a then-60-something SE that used harriers, footballers, cagers, baseballers and even called lacrosse players "stickers." (No, I don't know if they were an upgrade over decals)

I'm sure it took a heckuva lotta nerve to not use those phrases, but I didn't when I took over layout there for a while.

But sometimes, the "heckuva" and "aw, shucks" and those sort of phrases, whether or not they've an abomination of the language, give us - and the readers - insights to their personalities. For that reason alone, not all of these phrases should automatically be blasted by the Delete key.

 

I wouldn't lump "gonna" in with "gotta" and "heckuva."

"Going to" sounds a different than "gonna," but the other two sound the same as their properly written counterparts.

 

Hey, if it's a quote, use it.
I once had a coach, when describing a key play to help his team win a football game, toss out the term "who'd a-thunk ...?"
My editor (a graduate of the same high school) wanted to change it to "who would have thought ...?"
Oh, yeah, that just rolls off the tongue.
The whole office sided against her and it stayed, and not one reader (or the coach) complained.

 

I've used gonna, and you know why? Because that's what the person I was interviewing said. I thought that's what we do.

And what in the name of Zeus' butthole is a "local" paper. Unless you have a subscription to the Northern Madagascar Mirror, all papers are local.

 

High-falutin' people and their high-falutin' language issues.

All I knows is, I walked to school each day with a thinclad, a cager and a matman. Uphill. Both ways.

And we liked it that way.

 

I love the Northern Madagascar Mirror. A bit out of my usual coverage area, but fine stuff. ;D