Comment on Reporters Without Borders sues X
Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours agoOk maybe a very stulid question but
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday announced
Isn’t that gramatically incorrect? Shouldn’t it be “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced on Thursday”?
I see this kind of writing a lot in news articles so surely it’s not actually wrong, but that’s not how I was taught English writing.
It’s correct, as much as any English is correct, but not typically spoken naturally like that.
The press (newspapers) has an idiosyncratic grammar, probably born of maximising space in a newspaper column. Headlines are often grammatical nightmares, body copy less so.
One could think of it as a form of semantic compression.
It’s a bit stilted and no-one would speak like that (at least without sounding pretentious), but it’s not bad grammar.
Also, shame on the moron that downvoted you for asking a question.
Dialect variation. For me, saying “the car needs washed” sounds truly strange but millions and millions of people say it.
the car needs washed
Is there a name/term for this abomination? I’ve only ever heard one person speak in that form (omitting “to be”), and it has haunted me ever since.
‘chest of draws’ was a weird one for me!
ulterno@programming.dev 18 minutes ago
Had they just used some punctuation - “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday, announced”, it would have made it easier to get. Even, “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, on Thursday, announced” would be doable.
How do these feel?