Wall Street Journal

They speak a different language apparently, American football fans, one that has me giving up trying to read. It's not english, it's footballish.

Take the Wall Street Journal piece today headlined "Super-Bowl Jetsetters Face Tarmac Gridlock." (Feb 4-5 pA2)

First up they apparently date or number the Superbowl match with funny Latin numerals XLVI.

Everyone else has given up that archaic, mind boggling numbering system, but apparently it lives on footballish. We get caught up wondering what the hell number XLVI is in english numerals.

Page one of the print edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning carries a "What's News" 'grab' of an inside story that leads off "U.S. and U.S. forces freed an Italian ship hijacked by Somali pirates…" Of course they meant "U.K. and U.S. forces…" as the full story inside on pA17 makes clear with the correct headline "British and U.S. Forces Free Hijacked Italian Vessel."

"…America sends often principled and self-sacrificing volunteers to suffer and die (on) our behalf. We call them heroes and salve our consciences in a froth of words…

A few days back we were reprimanded by an official at New York's MTA Bridges and Tunnels for referring to her chairman and CEO Jay Walder's "giraffe-like" figure. It was unkind and "unprofessional," she said. Our retort was that it was a light-hearted poke, and that if he was sensitive about it he shouldn't appear in public ceremonies and pose for official photographs beside his comparatively tiny MTA colleagues.

The second sentence in the Wall Street Journal lead story on the front page (Jan 7) had us wondering if we'd gotten behind the latest in journalistic English. The report ran under the byline of Washington reporter Elizabeth Williamson.

The Wall Street Journal's reporters are amazing. Last time we wrote about their use of 'steamer trunk' as a measure of volume - written apparently by a female reporter aged about 93 with memories of packing luggage for steamship voyages?

This morning a Neil Sands under the dateline Melbourne Australia in a report on drug wars in Melbourne refers to it as a city with "an appealing climate." (WSJ 2010-08-14 pA7)

Just who it might appeal to he doesn't say.  

Haitians perhaps? Or Siberians? Saudis maybe. Patagonians?

That does it. The Wall Street Journal has set me off on another rant against fellow reporters' innumeracy. A report by Kris Maher in the technology section (WSJ, July 20 B4) on MagneLink, a new Lockheed Martin electromagnetic communications system to reach miners trapped underground describes the equipment as "about the size of a steamer trunk."

What the heck is a 'steamer trunk' was our first reaction?

Ah ha, we thought after about half a minute's pondering, it's probably a kind of luggage case that people took with them on 'steamers' - steam ships.

The Wall Street Journal reports today (2010-04-16 pA10) an amazing mystery surrounding a British Airways Boeing 747 flying through an ash cloud.

They say:

Just as if they call it smart you can be sure it's dumb, when they call it "reality TV" you know immediately it's unreal. But at least it provides some laughs. Over the last few days of course the important news out of the White House has been how a dishy red-dressed blonde gatecrashed a White House reception for the Indian prime minister.

Landmines will only pockmark a road after they've exploded, guys, and this is a story about lurking dangers, unexploded mines, so there aren't any pockmarks.