Dangle this!

There is no requirement that American reporters and editors pass a 9th grade English composition test. I was reminded of this when I read the following in a July 9, 2017, Boston Globe story about a man arrested for a road rage assault: “Travis Elsaadi was charged with assault by means of a dangerous weapon for allegedly striking a man driving a scooter with a metal baseball bat.”

Back in the “good old days,” copy editors would have dealt out a dope slap to a reporter who wrote such a dangling doozy. And if it did accidently slip by, a friendly linotype operator would have saved the reporter’s tail. Copy editors are getting as rare as linotype operators.

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Contact: BobSkole@aol.com