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.
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.
Posted by: Nicholas | February 12, 2007 at 11:22 AM
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.
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