As a journalist, I like word play and am pleased by a particularly good pun. One of my favorites was a Union-Tribune headline six years ago. “OUR CUP RUN IS OVER,” declared the front-page when the U.S. lost the America’s Cup to New Zealand.
That pun worked, and some readers loved it. But not all puns have the punch, the clarity, the cleverness of that headline. And unfortunately, some that fall short have appeared in the Union-Tribune.
A May 19 story about commuters riding bicycles to work said “Commuters take a brake from their cars.” There was no mention of brake in the story. That prompted reader Thorpe DeVoid of Chula Vista to ask if the writer was punning or if he really meant “break.” “Please,” wrote DeVoid, “give me a break, or is it a brake?”
A similar headline was used April 15 with a story about mountain bike riding in Utah. In that case, it was a better fit. The story told about using a brake to check speed.
Clarity, whether in puns or in telling the story, is the goal in newspaper writing. But what about words that in themselves are accurate but that can color a story? Ken Gardner, a retired technical writer who lives in El Cajon, recently e-mailed me about the use of the word “gaming” instead of “gambling.”
“Why has the Union-Tribune, supposedly a respectable family newspaper, supinely adopted the annoying commercial euphemism `gaming’ in place of the well-established and meaningful term `gambling?’ The terms,” Gardner wrote, “are not interchangeable: gambling has a long and dangerous history of addiction and ruin and lacks the essential requirement of a game: skill.”
I was intrigued with his question, and took it to Mike Sappington, who runs the news copy desk where headlines are written and where news stories are given a final going-over before being set into type. Not only does a copy editor write headlines, but he or she checks for libel, grammatical errors, misspellings, holes in stories and other errors.
Sappington pointed out that a dictionary definition of gaming is “the act or practice of gambling.” The definition of gambling is “to play games of chance for money or some other stake.”
Sappington surmised that people in the gambling industry probably prefer gaming, and in fact, ballot measures to legalize gambling have been called “gaming initiatives.”
Even so, people don’t talk about gaming. They talk about gambling. Have you ever heard of anyone saying he or she is going gaming in a casino?
Despite Gardner’s observation, it doesn’t appear to me that the Union-Tribune has surrendered use of the word gambling to gaming. Stories that I checked showed both words figured prominently. It appears that gambling is used as a general term and gaming is often used when referring to the promoters of gambling.
Both terms are used in headlines. Gambling has an edge over gaming. A check of headlines showed that between December, 1985 and last week, gambling was used 500 times in headlines. Gaming appeared 293 times during the same period. I couldn’t help but notice gaming was used in some headlines even when the lead, or the first paragraph of a story, referred to gambling. I suspect — as does Sappington — that headline writers settle for gaming, shorter by two letters, when gambling won’t fit in the space allotted.
According to Gardner’s definition, gaming carries with it an implication of skill. If you accept that, it might be considered accurate to call poker playing “gaming” because a skill is involved. On that basis, it would be inaccurate to call playing slot machines or other games of chance “gaming.” The lack of skill would make it gambling. It’s an interesting distinction.
Don L. Jones, a retired Vista businessman and former teacher, is annoyed by the use of “tarmac” as an all-purpose word for non-runway areas at airports and would like to see it abolished if it’s not already too late. I suspect it is.
His e-mail was prompted by a May 13 photo caption that referred to “rows of private planes lined up along the tarmac.”
“Tarmac,” Jones wrote, “is not an American term. It was borrowed from the Brits, and if we borrowed all their terms we would refer to the `telly’ and to `bed sitters,’ `boots’ and `bonnets.’ ”
Tarmac’s British roots are acknowledged in dictionaries. The word has become the catchall for non-runway areas that once were called aprons, taxiways, parking pads and ramps, Jones said. Now, the word often does not have anything to do with the pavement used, “only the fact that it involves aircraft.”
I suspect the English will have more of a chance of fighting the use of the American slang “main drag” for main street (that once popped up in a story in a London newspaper) than Americans will have in doing away with tarmac. The word is probably here to stay if stories in the Union-Tribune library are an indication. In the past 10 years, the term has appeared at least 500 times.
