It's OK to use the same word twice. Really.

She missed "a chunk" of the first half, or "most" of the first half, or, if she actually missed 50% of the first half, a QUARTER.

 

Yep. There are myriad ways to go that don't involve the words "half the first half."

That's just piss-poor writing.

 

I wonder if the fingernail grew back before the start of the second half.

 

Those phrases did come to mind, but lets suppose she missed the 4 minutes of the first quarter and four minutes of the second quarter. That is half of a half is it not? True it is piss poor writing, no question there, but if you were writing and that situation occurred. How would you have phrased it?

 

She missed eight minutes of the first half.

 

that's what i would do, use something like "she missed eight minutes of the first half." try and give a specific number of minutes.
and i concur with waylon on how to take care of who in the F the Purple Wave are...."Lincoln's Purple Wave", as Waylon noted, would be way to go.

 

Before we start piling on too badly, I think the original poster mentioned that he wrote the example story himself for purposes of illustrating his point about nicknames.

 

OK

 

Sorry, Drip. Not trying to be a jerk. There are just multiple ways to make that sentence sound better.

 

No argument on that one. I just brought up an incident that has happened numerous times during my career. I just noted that it's kind of hard to get around it but as several people have pointed out, it can be done.

 

Another nickname pet peave: Using them by themselves in a hed, without a subhed, when they're a common nickname.

Example: Tigers claw their way past Wildcats

Maybe if you're at a weekly or small daily with only a few high schools, that works. But in an area with dozens (or hundreds) of high schools, you need to narrow down the species of wild animals a bit

Of course, if you've got some unique nicknames like Hemitites, Nimrods or Modeltowners, maybe it's not a problem

U.P. power!

 

Some Guy,

I worked at a paper that had a policy of using NO nicknames for high school teams. Never. We always used the actual school name.

It was early in my career, but it was a decision I firmly believe made me a better writer, and it was something I stuck with for a long time before gradually allwoing nicknames to crop back up in my stories.