Read an Excerpt
Romps, Tots and Boffins
... The Strange Language of News
By Robert Hutton Elliott and Thompson Limited
Copyright © 2013 Robert Hutton
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-909653-44-3
CHAPTER 1
GENERAL
acolytes supporters of someone with whom we disagree.
afoot what trouble is and plans are.
after we will now imply a link between two events that may or may not be related. Or try 'ahead of', 'comes as' or 'in the wake of'.
agonising what waits are, suggesting that whatever 'tenterhooks' may be, they're not very comfortable.
amid may be appropriate if after or 'in the wake of' aren't.
anxiously how families will endure agonising waits.
arcane rules ones we can't be bothered to explain.
Arctic conditions snow.
avenues 'And the avenues?' 'Exhausted, sir.' 'Which of them?' 'Every avenue, sir.'
balding pate generally only used in diary columns and Sunday newspaper profiles.
ban newspapers are champions of free speech, but we accept that it has limits. Those limits are, broadly, the internet, pop songs, films and BBC broadcasts relating to sex or drugs. Reporters should keep in mind when writing stories under the headline 'Ban This Sick Stunt' that in 10 years they will be unable to explain what all the fuss was about.
baron oil or union. Never press, unless writing about events 60 or more years ago.
battle-scarred what a veteran is. As with veteran, rarely used of someone with actual scars from actual battles.
bean counter the kind of person who says an organisation can't afford to do something we think it should do. Within a newspaper, the kind of person who says journalists can't go on assignments to interesting and sunny places.
behind closed doors where top-level crisis talks typically take place.
bid it's so short: two and a half letter spaces! And it can mean so many things! Which may be why it gets used so much. For instance, 'murder bid', which as the journalist Gordon Darroch observed, evokes someone asking, 'Who will start me at £100 for this fine mid-Regency homicide?'
bigwig a chief we don't like.
black hole a point in space so dense that it creates a gravitational field so strong not even light can escape. Or, in newspapers, a gap. Especially in finance, where it typically refers to any funding shortfall over £1 million.
blanket what snow does to the countryside.
boffin anyone with a job at a university, a science GCSE, or a lab coat.
bolthole where celebrities and politicians 'hide out' from, well, us.
bombshell now we bring you news of a surprising thing that's happened.
branded a more painful kind of dubbing.
branded, immediately what someone's actions were, by us.
breakneck speed definitely over 40 mph.
brink a good way to write about something that would be a really terrific story if it did happen is to write that it's on the brink of happening.
buccaneer the business equivalent of an 'auteur director'. The ideal person to helm a company, presumably.
budding someone under 20 who's good at something.
By Our Foreign Staff a little newspaper joke. Of course we don't have a foreign staff any more. We can barely cover Kent. We lifted this from the newswires.
calculated snub the worst kind of snub.
chequered past they've never been convicted of anything, but keep in mind while reading this that they're still pretty dodgy.
chiefs we don't really understand business, as a look over our books will confirm. This is how we refer to the mysterious figures who apparently are quite important in it. Typically, a couple of dozen business chiefs will have written a letter either urging or warning of something. Or 'road chiefs', who are especially popular in local papers. But not Road Chefs, a class of restaurant in which no journalist would be seen dead.
clamour we've written two editorials about this. If there's one in today, refer to a 'growing clamour'.
clarion call someone has said something with which we agree.
coffers where organisations of which we disapprove keep their money.
confusion surrounds we can't work out what's going on, but you're welcome to try.
considering the all-purpose unfalsifiable policy story. No one will ever be able to convincingly deny that they've considered something. If the thing they're considering might actually happen, try 'actively considering', to distinguish it from the sort of passive consideration people give things before rejecting them out of hand.
corruption the appalling practice of politicians taking decisions that may benefit companies that have given their party money in the past. Completely different from 'freebies', when companies give journalists gifts, meals, or holidays worth hundreds or thousands of pounds simply out of kindness, and with no thought of receiving anything in return.
cosy consensus an agreement with which we disagree. Not to be confused with a 'sensible compromise'.
crack what 'special forces' and 'marksmen' are. Also worth mentioning lower down in the piece that these are 'elite troops'.
crimper hairdresser. As in 'celebrity crimper Nicky Clarke'. Typically concerned with stars' 'tresses'.
crisis talks what countries hold as their banks teeter on the brink of collapse, and what football clubs have with wantaway hitmen.
critics say we think.
crunch talks we're pretty sure everyone's run out of patience with the crisis talks. We certainly have.
dash off 1. false modesty about own carefully crafted prose; 2. a sneer at a rival's carefully crafted prose. Or try 'churn out'.
deepened what happened to people's difficulties last night.
densely argued good grief, what on earth is this guy talking about?
designer clothes as opposed to a sack with holes torn in it.
devastating what 'blows' are, and what we hope allegations may turn out to be.
disinterested ten quid says we actually mean 'uninterested'.
dogged 1. The kind of defiance shown by sportsmen who spent the match being beaten; 2. What scandal has done to a politician, due to our insistence on going on about it.
doubts remain we don't have the first idea what's really going on, and we've found a smart-sounding way to say it.
draconian the government is proposing something with which we disagree.
dragging his feet what the person shelving something (in the long grass) is doing.
dubbed someone's been given a nickname. By us.
electrify what we hope today's intervention will do to the debate, in the sense of making hair stand on end and causing involuntary twitching, but ideally without electrocuting the argument, in the sense of killing it.
eleventh hour the time at which one should start expecting last-ditch negotiations or last- gasp interventions.
embroiled the means by which people find themselves, unwillingly, dragged into disputes.
emerged how people left rooms if negotiations were successful. If they 'broke down', then participants typically 'stormed out'.
epicentre for when 'very centre' just doesn't sound exciting enough. Even though it doesn't mean 'very centre'.
expected to the person in question's office briefed us yesterday.
expenses-paid for some reason, when they hear the word 'expenses', journalists assume fraud must be involved. Psychologists might be able to explain why this should be.
facing charges they haven't been charged with a crime, they may never be charged with a crime, but they could be charged with a crime.
fancy what lawyers and accountants are. Wearing silk shirts, probably.
fat cats highly paid people of whom we disapprove. But never used of some of those whose pay is highest – rock stars, footballers, actors. Picture instead a man with a top hat and a curly moustache.
foretaste always a chilling one.
foul-mouthed tirade someone has said a Bad Word. This event is always 'extraordinary' or 'astonishing' to newspapers, whose staff are well known for their delicate sensibilities.
fresh (of fears, doubts, hopes and tensions) old, but reheated with a new quote.
full crisis mode a story has got so bad that the subject has hired public relations experts or, if they already had them, called them in for a meeting.
funnelling money giving it to someone of whom we disapprove.
funnyman (female: funnygirl) usually TV funnyman, for why else would we write about him? Consider whether he may be 'rubber- faced'. Generally associated with 'vice shame', 'heartbreak split', or 'secret tears'. NB: needn't actually be funny.
funster we cannot make it any clearer to you that this person is absolutely no fun to be around whatsoever.
fury most effective when referring to something basically pretty trivial, as in 'BIEBER FURY', used by both the BBC and Sky in a story about a pop concert starting late.
gauntlet 1. 'thrown down'. A back-me- or-sack-me challenge has been issued; 2. 'run'. They had to get past our reporter and photographer to reach their car.
glug how champagne is consumed by fat cats. Also 'guzzle'.
going forward the reporter, possibly half asleep, has copied out too much of the press release.
green light what 'road chiefs' have given to plans for a new roundabout.
grizzled what veterans are.
growing (of fears, doubts, hopes and tensions) unchanged.
guru management writer Peter Drucker summed this one up: We are using the word "guru" only because "charlatan" is too long to fit into a headline.'
hailed '... and last night tourism chiefs "hailed" the knock-on effect.' As in, 'All hail, mighty and worthy knock-on effect, we salute thee.'
heady what mixes are.
heartfelt 1. what pleas are; 2. regular in Daily Mail standfirsts: 'all parents must read this heartfelt and searingly personal account ...'
heartlands a place that used to be famous for doing something, and is now famous for not doing it any more, e.g. 'Tory shire heartlands'; 'Labour inner-city heartlands' and Chicago, which according to The Guardian used to be one of the Rolling Stones' heartlands.
heavily armed what SWAT teams, terrorists and soldiers are, to the constant surprise of reporters, if not readers.
helm (verb) the manner in which chiefs run their businesses.
hero anyone who has ever worn a uniform.* Except traffic wardens.
high-stakes gamble a decision about which we have our doubts.
hit back disagreed with something. See hit out.
hit out said something. Usually a prelude to someone else hitting back.
hopeful (noun) one who is about to be disappointed, as in 'leadership hopeful', 'Oscar hopeful' and 'Wimbledon hopeful'.
horror death smash a fatal car accident.
the humble X all non-human species, on first reference.
ill-fated frankly, it was inevitable that anything which 'started as an innocent day out' would turn out to have 'ended in tragedy'.
indictment usually 'damning', sometimes 'scathing', and occasionally 'searing'.
infrastructure either creaks or crumbles.
inks deal how a company or sportsman signs a contract.
it is not suggested we can't prove any of the things we've spent the last 600 words suggesting, but the lawyer reckons if we put this line in, they won't sue.
jostle how people get a position.
journalism's Oscars used of any award a paper has won. Actors rarely describe the Oscars as 'Hollywood's British Press Awards'.
just minutes away the distance between two places. The minutes in question can be up to 60, and the mode of transport a fast car on an empty road.
languishing a particularly unpleasant form of queuing.
last ditch the only ditch worth mentioning in this saga.
last gasp even more last-minute than the last ditch.
last night use to add urgency to a story written yesterday lunchtime, or, on a Sunday paper, on Wednesday.
let rip a rant, but with the added sense of someone finally expressing thoughts they've been suppressing for weeks, months, or years. Often written with a sense of sympathy from journalists who know just how this feels.
lethal cocktail there were two drugs in their system, you say?
lifeblood what small firms are to the economy. Due to a modern medical miracle, they're often also its 'backbone'.*
line their pockets what fat cats do with the bumper pay packets they trouser.
little Jack this enables readers to distinguish between this six-year-old and other, larger six-year-olds who have jobs and mortgages.
locked-in what crunch talks generally are.
lofty what ambitions are.
long grass where plans that have been 'shelved' are kicked, after much 'foot-dragging'.
loom what disaster does, shortly before it strikes.
loved one the good news is that if we've referred to you this way, you're unlikely to be in a condition to care about it.
magnate someone who has made a lot of money doing something. Reporters are urged to take every opportunity to use this for someone who made their fortune selling refrigeration equipment.
Marmite what the person one either loved or hated resembled.
mired in confusion what the plans are, probably because of that U-turn after the 'wheels came off'.
moggy all cats, on second reference.
much-trumpeted our rivals got very excited about this. We're about to enjoy making them look foolish.
mull they're thinking about it. Well, they might do it.
muzzle any attempt, usually by government or the courts, to suppress the free expression of journalists. It's quite wrong for such bodies to stop people writing what they think. That's the news editor's job.
mystery surrounds in time, it may deepen. Right now, we don't have a clue what's going on.
near miss really, a near hit.
nipper bit bigger than a tot, not yet a teen.
officialdom use this wherever hippies say 'The Man'.
on the line where one puts money and reputation.
one either loved or hated ... the editor and I disagree, and I have been allowed to salvage this much of my dignity.
opine what the idiots who write for our rivals do.
overshadowed what the story we wanted to write did to the story that the people we were writing about wanted us to write.*
pal friend 1. where space is short and we fear going over a line; 2. this is a lively, fun publication, and we're going to use the language of young people. From 1950.*
pay packet what people trouser, if it's bumper. Or, if they're leaving a job, try 'pay-off'.
pen (verb) how humble scribes give their words solid form.
penpusher usually found in a back office. Not to be confused with a scribe, or anyone else who pens things.
perfect storm two bad things have happened to someone at the same time.
Pictures! newspaper billboards often promise pictures. Sometimes, those pictures will even be of the story in question, rather than a plane like the one that crashed, or the restaurant where yesterday's shooting occurred, as it looked when it opened five years ago.
pins legs. This story will work best if read in the voice of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
playboy usually a prince, arms dealer or son.
plea a request.
plucky not long for this world.
plunge what stock markets do. Or, occasionally people, in which case it's a 'death plunge'.
pooch a dog, of any size and breed, that has lived up to the best traditions of its species by faithfully and humbly leading children out of danger or helping a pensioner cross the road. Not a synonym for devil dog.
possibly then again, possibly not.
postcode lottery used to describe the uneven distribution of resources, a bad thing. The message may have been missed though, as someone set one up a couple of years ago, presumably thinking it sounded quite attractive.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Romps, Tots and Boffins by Robert Hutton. Copyright © 2013 Robert Hutton. Excerpted by permission of Elliott and Thompson Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.