Monthly Archives: January 2009

Baseball

A Post for Baseball Nerds and Grammar Nazis Alike

Thus far, the MLB Network has played things pretty much by the book. A Hot Stove show, incessant World Series highlights, the occasional poorly chosen retrospective. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing remotely daring.

But they have been daring in one respect: their news crawl.

Watch any news network these days, and you will see a news crawl. Nearly all of them employ the present tense, as in OBAMA ISSUES STATEMENT ON ECONOMY or BRETT FAVRE CONTEMPLATES RETIREMENT, NAPS. In fact, I would say all of them do, except that I haven’t seen every network in the entire world. Don’t worry, I plan to.

But when you watch the MLB Network, their news crawl only uses the past tense. As in RICKEY HENDERSON ELECTED TO HALL OF FAME or ATLANTA BRAVES SIGNED DEREK LOWE TO RIDONKULOUS CONTRACT.

This completely flies in the face of News Crawl Protocol. And yet, it’s more grammatically correct. Because these events, for the most part, are not ongoing events. They are finite things that have been done and will not be repeated.

The use of the present tense is journalism shorthand, used in headlines and quick blurbs at the top of broadcasts to stress the URGENCY and IMMEDIACY of the news. Technically, it’s grammatically incorrect. But we’re used to present tense being used in this manner, so we don’t think twice about it.

In fact, when I first noticed the MLB Network opted for past tense, my first instinct was that someone had screwed up. My Copyeditor’s Sense detected something wrong. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was everyone except MLB who was wrong.

And that is the last time you will read the words ‘everyone except MLB was wrong’.

I applaud MLB Network, because I’m sure there was somebody in that style meeting who fought to keep present tense, because past tense sounded weird. And this visionary said, “NO! We will single-handedly undo 8 years of News Crawl Grammar Tyrrany!”

Or, knowing MLB, they picked a style with little regard for tradition or public preferences and just ran with it. In either case, kudos!

Adtacular

Confusing Ad Campaign Theatre Presents: Budweiser!

I wasted at least a dozen people’s time this weekend discussing the bizarreness of this ad. So allow me to waste your time, too, won’t you?

Perhaps you’ve seen Budweiser’s latest ad campaign. In it, a man who appears to be a Bud employee schools various beer consumers on the finer points of Bud’s brewing process. “Lager Lessons” if you will. Which you will, since that’s what Bud is calling them.

I’m not sure who this ad campaign is intended to sway. Beer snobs will poke holes in their claims. You know, like how Bud brews their beer with rice, not because it adds any unique flavor, but because it’s stupid cheap.

Everyone else won’t give two doodies about their brewing process. Budweiser’s slogan should be, Hey, you’ve been drinkin’ it since high school–why stop now?

But there’s one ad in particular that has me scratchin’ me noggin. In it, we see two schlubs bring their beer purchases to a convenience store checkout. Their six pack holders have no names, but based on their color schemes, we’re meant to understand that they’re Miller Lite and Heineken.

The Loyal Bud Employee says, “Oh, it’s 3 o’clock. You know what 3 o’clock is, don’t you?” He then rattles of Bud’s impressive daily inspection process, which shames them into changing their beers for Bud. Because as well know, Budweiser is the only brewer who actually inspects their beer. Every other brewing company lets rats and dogs swim around in their vats.

But as the two schlubs leave the counter to exchange their choice of beer, the convenience store clerk/owner/whatever says “You’re veddy good!” (because of course the convenience store guy is Indian)

My question is, Why does the convenience store guy care what beer the schlubs buy? Maybe if they were going to buy smaller craft brews he’d care, since presumably he’d make less of a profit on those. Poor guy probably loses a couple cents every time he sells a sixer of Sierra Nevada.

But since the schlubs originally intended to buy other Big-Ass Beers like Miller Lite, what’s the difference between that and Bud to this owner guy? It should mean pretty much the same amount of dough in his pocket, unless he owns stock in InBev.

It’s not even that horrible a commercial, particularly by Budweiser standards. I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? If so, please inform me, gentle reader.

Football, Skitch Hanson

A Skitch in Time

Skitch Hanson will be joining us later this week to preview the NFL championship games. In the meantime, I have finally added his Scratchbomb oeuvre to the new site. If you’d like to revel in his mastery of the sporting language, click here.

You can also check out Skitch Hanson’s exciting Twitter updates here.