Are You Stuck in Linguistic Limbo?
This week I received a glossary of terms from the managing editor’s office, helping to explain the jargon known as journalese. It was intended for new starters and trainee journalists, but it was still a gripping read.
The glossary was an amalgam of classic Fleet Street favourites — “shoe-leather journalism”, “angle”, “sweep” and “colour” — mixed with terms that reflect more digital times. Several of the terms listed spoke quite generally to the profession, others had evolved according to the whim and personalities of those within. Today’s lingo now includes words such as “computational journalism” and “fastcharts”, to reflect our data-driven dynamism. But even though we think digitally about our stories, old print-media terms such as “drains” and “decks” persist.
Journalese boasts a long, arcane tradition. When I first started on a paper, at the turn of the millennium, the language of the newsroom was still rooted in the letterpress. It was an era of “busted headlines”, where words wouldn’t fit the allotted type space, “galley proofs” and “copytakers”, which referred to a team of, mostly, women who would type out stories dictated over phones.
