174. Trite Phrases.—Interest requires one also to seek originality of expression, to avoid trite phrases and hackneyed words. Embalmed meats and kyanized sentences are never good. Yet one of the most difficult acquirements in reporting is the ability to find day after day a new way to tell of some obscure person dying of pneumonia or heart disease. Only reporters who have fought and overcome the arctic drowsiness of trite phraseology know the difficulty of fighting on day after day, seeking a new, a different way to tell the same old story of suicide or marriage or theft or drowning. Yet one is no longer permitted to say that the bridegroom wore the conventional black, or the bride was elegantly gowned, or the bride's mother presided at the punch bowl, or the assembled guests tripped the light fantastic. The reporter must find new words for everything and must tell all with the same zest and the same sparkling freshness of expression with which he wrote on his first day in the news office.
175. Figures of Speech.—In his search for freshness, variety of expression, the reporter often may avail himself of figures of speech. These add suggestiveness to writing and increase its meaning by interpretation in a figurative rather than a literal sense. To say, "Oldfield flew round the bowl like a ruined soul on the rim of Hades," is more effective than "Oldfield ran his car round the course at a 110-mile rate of speed." But the writer must be careful not to mix his figures, or he may easily make himself ridiculous. An apt illustration of such mixing of figures is the following:
It seemed as if the governor were hurling his glove into the teeth of the advancing wave that was sounding the clarion call of equal suffrage.
In particular, one must not personify names of ships, cities, states, and countries. Note, for example, the incongruity in the following:
Especially does the man of discriminating taste appreciate her when he compares her with the ordinary tubs sailing the Great Lakes.
176. Elegance.—Force also requires that one heed what may sometimes seem trivialities of good usage. For instance, a minister may not be referred to as Rev. Anderson, but as the Rev. Mr. Anderson. Coinage of titles, too, is not permitted: as Railway Inspector Brown for John Brown, a railway inspector. And the overused "editorial we" has now passed entirely from the news article. In an unsigned story, even the pronoun I should not be used, nor such circumlocutions as the writer, the reporter, or the correspondent. In a signed story, however, the pronoun I is used somewhat freely, while such stilted phrases as the scribe, your humble servant, etc., are absolutely taboo.
177. Slang.—Finally, mention must be made of slang, the uncouth relative in every respectable household. It is used freely on the sporting page, but is barred from other columns, its debarment being due to its lack of elegance and clearness. On the sporting page slang has been accepted because there one is writing to a narrow circle of masculine Goths who understand the patois of the gridiron, the diamond, and the padded ropes and prefer it to the language of civilization. But such diction is always limited in its range of acquaintances and followers. A current bit of slang in Memphis may be unintelligible in Pittsburg. A colloquial ephemeralism in a city may be undecipherable in the country districts twenty-five miles away. A large percentage of the athletic jargon of the sporting club and field is enigmatical to the uninitiated. And since a newspaper man writes for the world at large rather than for any specific class or group, he cannot afford to take chances on muddying his sentences by the use of slang. The best test of a good journalist is the instinct for writing for heterogeneous masses of people. That word is not a good one which is clear only to select readers, whether select in ignorance or select in intelligence. The news story permits no such selection. It is written, not for the few, not for the many as distinct from the few, but for all. No other kind of reading matter is so cosmopolitan in its freedom from class or provincial limitations as is the news story, and none is more unwavering in its elimination of slang. Newly coined words, it is true, are admitted more readily into news stories than into magazine articles, but slang itself is barred. One may not write of the "glad rags" of the debutante, or the "bagging" of the criminal, or the "swiping" of the messenger boy's "bike." One may not even employ such colloquialisms as "enthuse," "swell" (delightful), "bunch" (group). But one may use such new coinages as burglarize, home-run, and diner rather freely. When in doubt about the reputability of a word, however, one should consult a standard dictionary, which should be kept continually on one's desk.