A column on writing from Editor & Publisher August 15, 1981.

Kicking the automatic writing habit

Writing coaches, usually outsiders, are new pros in newsrooms. They complain about the clichéd vocabulary of reporters. "It's a kind of automatic writing," says Peggy Abt of Orange County Community College, popular coach at The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y. "Reporters often don't make conscious word choices. When I ask, 'Why this phrase?' they always find a better way. The problem is writing against a deadline."

To a reporter writing against the clock, all coaches are popular, all storm clouds are black, all cops who are not rookie are veterans (not necessarily of wars: "a veteran city police officer was shot today...").

The writer who covers one beat has the worst problem. The mind drifts into the miasma of that beat's bromides. To steer away from tired language, collect the wide awake words of able writers covering the same subject.

Here are a few polar words together with most of the graduations, nouns and adjectives together, not in precise logical order since that is hard to do. As a cautionary note, a few pejorative color words have been tucked in parenthesis, to be avoided unless attributed in news stories.

• Black-Gray-White. BLACK, inky, ebony, eggplant, charcoal, sooty, GRAY dusky, smoky, slate, granite, aluminum, silvery, nickel, pewter, gunmetal, asphalt, ash, shadowy, squirrel, mouse, mole, battleship, mushroom, pussywillow, turtledove, putty, lead, bruise-colored, martini, driftwood, pearl, cream, oyster, snow-colored, WHITE.
  Colin Nickerson in a front-page story in the Boston Sunday Globe on the perils of farming: (T)he sky is the color of an old bruise, dark purple with ominous streaks of yellow.)
   
• Rookie-Veteran. ROOKIE, new, fledgling, green, unripe, (half-baked), cub, young-timer, recruit, tyro, neophyte, novice, beginner, sprout; hard-boiled, seasoned, expert, experienced, war-horse, (old dog), old bird, old-timer, VETERAN.
   
• Always-Never. ALWAYS, continuously, constantly, regularly, often, frequently, commonly, recurringly, continually, usually, sometimes, fitfully, occasionally, intermittently, seldom, rarely, infrequently, now and then, scarcely, hardly ever, twice, once, NEVER.
   
• Tasty-Bland. TASTY, savory, appetizing, flavorsome, flavorful, relishing, good-tasting, mouth-watering, delectable, succulent, pungent, piquant, savory, delicious, appetizing, palatable, flat, insipid, (unpalatable), BLAND.
   
• Popular-Unpopular. POPULAR, well-loved, much-loved, beloved, celebrated, acclaimed, renowned, well-liked, much-liked, likable, tolerated, (disliked, friendless), UNPOPULAR.
   
Popular is so popular because no other word quite replaces its meaning.
 
The spectrum for said and asked are by and large off limits to news reporters, being too full of loaded words. These range from claimed to charged, confessed to apologized, rasped to screeched, suggested to insisted, babbled to lisped, implored to admitted. Except for their use in feature stories, editors screech about most of them.
 
• For a list of 204 sports verbs for win and lose, see Writing Guide #3.

Ethel Grodzins Romm is a writer and editor currently living in New York City. She is the author of The Open Conspiracy: What America's Angry Generation is Saying (review) (auction with cover), several of the Strategies in Reading workbook series and others. She appeared in the film Paranormal: Science or Pseudoscience? She has written columns on language for Editor & Publisher, The American Bar Association Journal and many others. She is currently working on a book on management.