Ridiculing the nonsense of the San Angelo Standard Times Editorial Board since 2007

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Warning: The English language was harmed during the writing of this op-ed

Grammar: some like it; others don’t. Others, like the SASTEB, just plain ignore it. There are twelve sentences in the April 2 column, “Cast wary eye on regulatory reform.” Let’s see how many are actually full and complete sentences.

Treasury secretary Henry Paulson was right about one thing when he introduced his sweeping 218-page overhaul of our financial regulatory system: The midst of a financial crisis is no time to do it.

I like the mildly indefinite reference at the end of the first sentence. It readies the palate for the pure trash we’re going to be served later.

Paulson and the White House seem resigned to the prospect that if broad reforms are to be enacted, it will be the next president and the next Congress who will do so. A long skeptical look at the overhaul is in order if only because it not only greatly expands the authority of the Federal Reserve but also over time might fundamentally change the character of the central bank. And, we might keep in mind, the Fed by design is not the most transparent of institutions. That serves it well as steward of the nation's currency, not so well as overseer of the financial markets.

Impressive, a nice run with only a bit of tortured syntax in the third sentence and awkward phrasing in the second.

However, the fourth sentence gets nasty. First, there’s an indefinite reference starting the sentence. That’s nitpicky, though, compared to the real travesty: THE FOURTH SENTENCE CONTAINS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT!!! DOES NOBODY EDIT THESE THINGS???? WHO OK’D THIS?????

There needs to be some kind of conjunction between the comma and the word “not.” Any fourth-grader can tell you that.

On another note, I’ve really got to wonder exactly why transparency is a positive trait in a steward of currency, but a negative trait in an overseer of financial markets. Sadly, the SASTEB offers no actual reasoning for this rather interesting claim. If only they would write an article about that issue. But then again, that would require actual analysis, when the board is really too busy mangling the English language.

Certainly it might be worth seeing how the Bear Stearns mess plays out. Whether the $30 billion infusion of taxpayer money was a well-crafted, one-time bailout - Chrysler and Mexico come to mind - that prevented further damage to the system, or whether we've set a bad precedent for rescuing investment banks from their own recklessness.

Chester P. Worthington, Spokesman, Society for the Preservation of the English Language: That last sentence just made me vomit.

This is a ridiculous sentence fragment - it has two dependent clauses held together only by awkward phrasing. This is a complete embarrassment to any paper. Two sentence fragments. In one op-ed. UN-believable. RI-diculous. A-rugula.

Also, when you think “bailout,” does Mexico really come to mind?

Streamlining the regulatory structure sounds like a good idea and so does extending federal oversight over previously unwatched institutions such as hedge and private equity funds, but this broader purview doesn't seem to be backed up by additional regulatory muscle.

This sentence is needlessly long and awkward. It could easily be put into two digestible sentences, but that would violate the basic rule of modern journalism: one sentence = one paragraph.

The Bush administration is unashamedly regulation-averse and it's a fair question to ask whether an aggressive use of existing regulatory powers might have ameliorated the current credit meltdown. Paulson says no. "I do not believe it is fair to blame our regulatory structure for the current market turmoil," he said.

Really? Really? Did you just write, “and it’s a fair question to ask whether?” Really? Because “fair question to ask whether” is blatantly redundant. Painfully so. To the point of being comical.

Sweet Jesus, you people can’t write. Who were your professors? Who are your editors? They ought to be tried at the Hague.

Market cycles happen, but it's hard to believe no one in a position to act saw this coming. Reform advocates would argue that the two are unrelated, but politically, Congress isn't going to do anything for the big guys until it can credibly claim it has done something for the little guy - namely, government help with foreclosures.

I like the completely worthless insertion of the word “politically.” It’s like adding the word “Congressionally” in that spot. It adds absolutely nothing and makes an already wordy sentence even more awkward.

The issue for the lawmakers will be the same: Striking a balance between good public policy - keeping people in their homes, healthy financial markets - and underwriting imprudent speculation, which could set ourselves up for another debacle.

This sentence makes no sense. The SASTEB writes that there are two options: good policy and funding imprudent speculation. Thus, there is a bad and a good option. Then, the board contends that lawmakers need to strike a balance between the good and bad options. Why then, don’t the lawmakers just take the good option??? THE SENTENCE DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!!!!

In the end, 2 out of the 12 sentences contained fragments. 1/6. That's 1 minus 5/6. 17%. In a professional article. This performance would warrant an F in a high school english course.

The English language has survived far more insidious and prominent attacks than these minor scuffles with the SASTEB. Thank God the Standard-Times’ circulation numbers are atrocious, or else this kind of trash would be able to get out to the general public. What really scares me, though, is that these newspapers are given to students in San Angelo public schools, and many teachers presume the writing, since it is professional, is of reasonable quality. This is patently false.

The SASTEB writers are professional journalists the same way William Hung is a professional singer.

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