The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Really?

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Recently, a single word, vogue affectation has emerged in vocal and written commentary, in particular reflecting the perceived need to express sarcastic bemusement in commenting on current events in politics with a wink and a slant. This oft abused interjection is cropping up more and more in the media and in the blogosphere. Moreover, it is slithering into casual conversation, as any annoying vogue word is wont to do. ?????? ???? ?????? It goes without saying that its condescending tone of ironic incredulity mixed with moral superiority, along with its exponentially grown ubiquity is beginning to piss this Turkey off. That’s nothing new. After all, this old curmudgeon gets pissed off when the last drop winds up hitting the water after the flush is complete. And thanks to a benignly overgrown prostate, it frequently does so, but I digress. (TMI. Really?) Anyhow, someone needs to turn off the spiggot.

“What is this word, already?” you ask.
Really?

“Yes, really.”
That’s what it is.

“What’s what it is?”
OK, so you can’t glean in from the headline and I hand it to you and you still don’t get it? Really?

The vogue word today, much as it was in the 1970s, is really. Only the punctuation and inflection have changed to protect the no longer innocent.

Back in the 1970s, the word was used as a semi-disinterested, declarative interjection to convey vacuous agreement. Sometimes it was pronounced to rhyme with “Philly”, especially among the Valley Girl demographic. Here’s a conversation from the 1970s, taking place in a fern bar. (If you have to ask what a fern bar is, you weren’t of age in the 1970s.)

She: I’m like totally into the Bee Gees. They make me feel like dancing.
He: Rilly.

She: So, like what’s your sign? I’m a Libra.
He: Rilly. Like, I’m a Aquarius.

She: Rilly. You wanna get out of here and have some fun at my place?
He: REALLY?! We’re outta here!

That was the 1970s, and this is now. We’re a less kind, more sarcastic genre of humanity a generation later. Now, we use the word to express condescension and derision in a unilateral conversation, as if we were commenting on something someone else said, only we said it. It works for both mocking agreement and mocking dismissal — you have to guess, but it’s usually directed at a knowing audience, so you’re supposed to know. This “Really?” thing has all but replaced the ridiculous, “Well, duh!” Here are some examples.

  • In The Weekly Standard: Cheney’s heart transplant won’t change his approach to work. Really? (Meaning: Wow! This guy is one tough cookie who is purporting to be able to handle a full schedule. ????? ???? ???? It’s going to be impossible and we don’t really think he can do it but it’s great that he thinks so.)
  • In the Daily Kos: Cheney’s heart transplant won’t change his approach to work. Really? (Meaning: Yeah, right. This guy’s heart was black to begin with and he’s a warmonger and that’s never going to change. His “work” is grabbing money and killing people.)

It plays equally well (???) in prosaically spoken prose, particularly on those 15 second sound bite laden news programs we no longer watch.

  • Channel 9 Eyewitness News: The Magic won’t be going deep into the playoffs without Dwight Howard. Really? Marla will have the story after the break…

I suppose that we’re stuck with the “Really?” crap for a while. Flare-ups of this kind usually die a slow smoldering death, smothered by overuse, but fanned by the minions of heartlanders to whom it remains a new thing for a while longer because it took a while longer to get there. Inevitably, however, it will be replaced eventually by something even lamer. ???? ??? ????

The Turkey has done written enough. Really?

 

What’s in a headline?

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Journalists and editors these days apparently lack the facility to write cogent headlines that convey the meaning of the associated news story unambiguously.

Recently, a good friend’s six year-old child was the victim of a minor shark bite, which he received while wading in knee-deep water at the beach during a Kindergarten outing. As there have been many shark bites off Florida east coast beaches of late, the local media wanted to make a big deal of it. It was indeed a big deal to the kid, who received eight stitches at the emergency room, and perhaps more so to his mom, but one local TV station felt it should be embellished by the following misleading, ambiguous, and alarming headline in the original report on its web site:

Shark Bites Child’s Leg Off New Smyrna Beach

The boy’s older sister was the first to note the ambiguity, finding it hilarious. Meanwhile, I had emailed the article to several friends to let them know that the incident occurred. I didn’t add a note to say that the tyke was doing well, as the article eventually got around to saying that, and the video interview showed him walking with his mom, leg taped up, but animated, loquacious, and clearly enjoying being the center of attention.

My friend who is an English professor also made note of the ambiguous headline, stating that it would be worthy of submission to Reader’s Digest. I received emails from most of the others to whom I had sent the article and I let them know that all was well. However, I then received a voice mail from a friend who was severely shaken—as emotional as I had ever experienced him.

That friend had received my email on his Wi-Fi iPod, and seeing the headline on the small screen and my note to the effect that it was my friend’s child, he was quite taken aback. He clearly read the headline as a shark-facilitated amputation. He had just had dinner with me and my friend recently, and wanted to know what he could do in this tragic situation.

The mood created by the equivocal headline instantly swung from frivolous to grave.

I quickly returned my friend’s call to let him know that it wasn’t as it seemed in the headline. That left him relieved at first, but angry later. I would be, too. This sort of sensationalist crap—the “if it bleeds, it leads” school of news editing—hurts people.

A few days later, I noted that the TV station had changed the article’s headline. It now reads:

Shark Bites Child’s Leg At Volusia Beach

Undoubtedly, they received complaints. It wouldn’t surprise me if people complained because they were wanting more gore than was the actual situation—they’re conditioned by the sleazy news to crave blood and seek it out. They were probably disappointed in this case.

The boy and his mom are doing fine.