How to read newspapers.

November 29, 2008 by
Filed under: General Budgeting, Retirement, Pensions and Kiwisaver, The Book and Website 

 

Our local paper – Wairarapa News had the following piece of fantastic English grammar this week:

 

The National Government will inevitably have a potential negative impact on the function, fortunes and fate of local government …..

 (Wairarapa News Nov 26th, reporter Michael Kopp).

 

Ok, so why am I blogging about this? Well because its something I’ve noticed a lot over the years since I started actually reading the papers for Economic news, and personal finance information.

 

That sentence doesn’t say what you are supposed to think it says.

 

If something is inevitable – it ain’t a potential. Its gonna happen. If it’s only a potential – then it may or may not happen – but it’s not inevitable.

 

 (Unless you are a quantum physicist – in which case you could actually be right – I wouldn’t have a clue!)

 

So, like I say in my book – READ the article. And learn to weed out the stuff that is designed to make you believe something that isn’t necessarily true.

 

The above line wouldn’t grab anywhere near as much attention if it said:

 

Well, the National Government may have a negative impact on local services – but we don’t really have a clue yet, cos they have only been at it for 2 weeks, and we have only just found out who the cabinet are. But come back in a month and we might have some real information for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. Something you need to read if you are worried about redundancy.
  2. Taking on more debt is not the way to deal with debt problems.
  3. 50 reasons to just be sensible
«
»

Tags: , ,

Comments

One Comment on How to read newspapers.

  1. local news and newspapers | CNN.com on Sun, 30th Nov 2008 4:33 am

    2. [...] How to read newspapers. Our local paper – Wairarapa News had the following piece of fantastic English grammar this week: The National Government will inevitably have a potential negative impact on the function, fortunes and fate of local government … … [...]

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!