All posts by Matthew Callan

Life In These United States

And that Little Boy Who Nobody Loved Grew Up to Be…

Just heard (thanks to eagle-eyed reader TheWhiteBoomBoom) that the kid from Jersey named Adolf Hitler has been taken from his parents. Contain your shock if you can, please.

Most people, I’m sure, are happy to hear this. Me, I just hope his home situation was actually abusive or unsafe enough to warrant this move, because I think kids should only be put into foster care under extreme circumstances. I fear that the town Adolf lives in was embarrassed by the attention and pressured into doing something, even if his parents provided him a reasonable home.

Maybe reasonable isn’t the right word. How about adequate? Tolerable? Sufficient in all respects except for constant stream of hatred issuing from dad’s mouth?

My point is, yeah, I yelled bout this case when it popped up like everyone else. But on further reflection, I just hope the relocation was necessary. Being racist doesn’t necessarily make you an unfit parent. If it did, then at least half of the kids I grew up with should have been taken away by Child Protective Services.

Then again, simply naming your kid Adolf Hitler is a form of abuse. That’s a scar that ain’t gonna heal.

Tuneage

If You Want Some of this Dirty…

Last night I was watching VH1’s Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time or whatever the hell it was called (too lazy to look up real title). “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu Tang came in pretty high on the list, of course. When noting Wu Tang’s current hiatus, the narrator mentioned “the tragic death of ODB in 2004.”

I think the proper adjective in this case would be untimely. I don’t think Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s death can really be termed tragic. In fact, considering his many, many vices, he probably exceeded his life expectancy.  

Not that I’m glad the guy’s dead, but saying ODB’s death was tragic is kinda like saying GG Allin’s death was tragic. Can’t keep putting your tongue on the third rail and not get zapped some day.

Then again, it is a kind of tragedy that we’re all robbed of the chance to see something like this again:

 

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!