{"id":684,"date":"2012-11-12T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T00:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=684"},"modified":"2012-11-12T15:06:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T02:06:19","slug":"the-tragic-life-of-the-much-loved-adjective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=684","title":{"rendered":"The tragic life of the much-loved adjective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Although I haven\u2019t heard it for a year or two, there used to be a common saying among sub-editors: If it\u2019s not true, you\u00a0shouldn’t\u00a0say it; and if it is true, you probably don\u2019t need to say it.<\/p>\n

More often than not, this advice was prompted by the careless use of adjectives.<\/p>\n

A child\u2019s valiant<\/em> (or heroic<\/em>) battle with illness.\u00a0 A mother\u2019s desperate<\/em> search for the perfect Christmas gift.\u00a0 The tragic<\/em> death of a much-loved<\/em> pet.<\/p>\n

For a while there, I thought that the sub-editors\u2019 message was getting through. \u00a0But over the past few months I have noticed a return to the bad old days and bad old ways.<\/p>\n

It seems that every entertainment event, no matter how obscure, is eagerly anticipated<\/em>.\u00a0 (And never mind that my dictionary lists the \u2018expect\u2019 sense of anticipate as disputed.)<\/p>\n

Everywhere there are tragic<\/em> consequences \u2013 even though, on closer reading, the consequences seldom turn out to be either \u2018calamitous\u2019 or \u2018greatly distressing\u2019.<\/p>\n

And every performer with a light-hearted bent and a joke book is described as the hilarious<\/em> Bill (or Belinda) Smith \u2013 even though they seldom manage to raise more than a slight smile from their audiences.<\/p>\n

Adjectives \u2013 like their cousins adverbs \u2013 can be very useful.\u00a0 They can add clarity and they can add style.\u00a0 But scattered carelessly, they are likely to have just the opposite effect.\u00a0 Whenever I read of the tragic death of a much-loved pet, I think: this is the work of a very lazy writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I haven\u2019t heard it for a year or two, there used to be a common saying among sub-editors: If it\u2019s not true, you\u00a0shouldn’t\u00a0say it; and if it is true, you probably don\u2019t need to say it. More often than … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}