Journalists and slang
Journalists and slang go way back. The old world of journalism was infested with slang words and phrases. Some obsolete now, others hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Here are a few.
Journalistic lingo
Screamers were huge bold headlines, usually in the tabloids.
Maybe WAR had broken out!
The heavies usually didn’t carry screamers. The Guardian, Times and FT felt they were above such tactics. Journos originated in Australia. Sob-sisters hailed from the US. And hacks and hackettes sadly from England in the 1980s. We’re so civilised and woke now, aren’t we? Still better than being a tripe-hound, I guess!
Newsie, by comparison, is gently polite, isn’t it? A newsie was a newspaper seller. Again from Australia and the US. He might have sold you a pink ’un on a wet Saturday when the match was over in a Midland or Northern town with the trolley buses flashing in the smog.
Death and taxes are unavoidable. Come to think of it that’s a lie! But death, at least, still comes even to the most evasive corporate cowboy. So if you’ve made your mark you could end up with an obit on page 35, edited by the slot man and prepared by an underpaid scribe.
But if that’s too depressing there are always the funnies to fall back on! Comic strips have been with us for generations. Long may they thrive!
Editors and slang
Slang is everywhere. Every job, every hobby, every sport, every separate part of society has its own slang. Printing and publishing are no exception.
Good copy-editors and proofreaders are not prigs. If your author uses slang never change it. Don’t try to make an author respectable. Your standards are irrelevant. The author’s voice is paramount. If she uses slang she does so because she likes it. You can’t second-guess the market. That’s not your job. It’s the author’s and the publisher’s responsibility, not the copy-editor’s or proofreader’s.
Sometimes you might be asked to intervene. The publisher may ask you to cut down the slang in a book. Very unusual, but possible. Then, of course, you would.