Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

On ‘Breaks Down’

WalterHeadline from a fairly high-level conservative publication: RFK Jr. Breaks Down His Stance on 2nd Amendment.

Surely that is bad writing. I don't object to the use of 'breaks down' to mean 'analyze,' although the overuse of the former expression by journalists is becoming tedious  and all-too-indicative of what language lemmings they are. But what the headline reports is not analysis but explanation. 'Explains' is the word. Or one of them. 

No wonder journalists can't think worth a damn: they can't write worth a damn. The worst, of course, are the leftists. I deprecate them as 'journos.' The conservatives I call 'journalists.' They are a couple of cuts above the journos, but that is not saying much. Neither term is approbative in my book.

The visage of 'Walter' above signals a language rant, so that you may bail if such is not to your taste.


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4 responses to “On ‘Breaks Down’”

  1. Gary Huber Avatar
    Gary Huber

    Another word that means roughly same thing, but is much overused these days, is “unpack”.

  2. EG Avatar
    EG

    I miss Walter, his rants were funny.

  3. EG Avatar
    EG

    @gary
    There was a discussion of just this fast and loose use of words to mean something other than their denotation; and readers and the writers are the poorer for it, since as it is language, it starts to mutate and then “dilute” itself.

  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    Remind me of the ventriloquist whose dummy Walter is. Jeff something.

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