Say it again, Sam.

So I’m driving to work the other day and a news report about the death of famed  50’s crooner and songwriter Frankie Laine  comes on the radio.

A phrase jumps out. “In a prepared statement, the family said... .”

“Prepared statement?

What’s the converse: an ”unprepared“ statement.

My colleague, style watchdog Scott Libin, wondered if an unprepared statement requires that ”the words would appear in random order.“

There seems no doubt: prepared statement is redundant. Limit it to ”statement.“ You lose none of the meaning and trim your story by a word.

Stay alert for redundancies in your prose, omitting those speed bumps that distract a listener/viewer/reader.

p.s.I initially described Scott Libin as ”ever-vigilant language watchdog.“ But watchdogs, by their very nature, are expected to be ever-vigilant, as opposed to asleep at the switch. Out went ”ever-vigilant,“ The meaning’s preserved while the story is a two-word hybrid shorter.

You can listen to samples from Laine's "Greatest Hits" album on this amazon.com page.

Comments

[Nicholas]

I agree. It's even worse when, and I see this often in the papers, reporters write, "He read a prepared statement..."

If I had a hamster I'd line its cage with articles like this.

[Rebecca Dube]

Excellent point. I would take it even further and banish "said in a statement." I mean, if someone says something in song or in a finger-painting, I think that's worth noting, but usually a simple "said" will suffice. "Said" and "stated" mean the same thing, so "said in a statement" is redundant. Usually the reporter is trying to point out that it was a written press release and not a live statement, but there are better ways of doing that. (Like "said in a news release.") ...Sorry for the rant. I'm on a quiet and lonely crusade to stamp this out at my newspaper.