Have the bitter, washed-up hacks who compile this column finally lost it completely?
Okay, while they are already ruing the decision to pose that question for fear of the answers that might flood in, they do ask all you BUGers out there to consider the intro (above and below) to this morning’s two-page spread in The Sun-Herald on yesterday’s Pacific Championships decider in Hamilton, New Zealand.
For, you see, back in the days when the compilers of this column subbed on major metropolitan newspapers, their bottles of rapidly reducing rum laid flat on top of their style and font handbooks in the bottom draw, they would read that intro and immediate think the Kangaroos have given the Kiwis that record thumping. They still do. It’s the only logical way to interpret it.
They don’t want to get all technical and grammary, if such a word exists, but clearly it’s a case of anal retentive possessive and Australia owns the “record thumping” which then means, ipso facto, mon reposito and pendant actum, that the Kiwis were the recipient of such a hiding.
The only way to avoid that message being clearly sent to readers would be to replace the “of” with “by” which our compilers suspect would be a far better and professionally journalistic way of clearly conveying what took place over the dutch yesterday arvo.
FOOTNOTE: This intro (and, by the by, the bitter, washed-up hacks who compile this column still call that the lead and not the fucking lede that the young brigade carry on with) was found in a country edition of The Sun-Herald. They don’t know if it was changed for later city editions – they very much doubt it – but it’s still proudly on display on the paper’s net site this morning as this column was approaching upload.
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