Strong word choices help to clarify and expand ideas. Words should be chosen carefully to provide details that are informative and interesting. These words can help persuade an audience to adopt a new point of view or take a particular action.
Here's a list of carefully chosen action words used by the national media within the past 48-72 hours regarding Hurricane Gustav (as gleaned from Google News by Dave & I this evening):
churns
slams
blasts
interrupts
roars
forces
threatens
rears
looms
devastates
flourishes
hits
swirls
eyes
menaces
cuts
targets
aims
swells
spins
howls
grows
strikes
approaches
stalks
barrels
marches
builds
races
lashes
plods
ravages
intensifies
plows
flirts
terrorizes
pounds
hammers
attacks
sights
pummels
weakens
strengthens
closes
brews
heads
lurks
dumps
skirts
casts
crushes
destroys
sticks
rocks
displaces
batters
drives
expands
pops
meanders
bends
disrupts
flanks
traverses
clobbers
rips
tears
gallops
All this and the thing hasn't made it to the U.S. mainland yet....
An interesting thing to note about these carefully chosen words -- in many instances when an article is centered around the effects (or potential effects) of this storm to infrastructure or commodities (i.e. when they're talkin' bout stuff such as roadways or oil rigs) the verbs tend to be a little less .... intimidating. Gustav swirls toward oil refineries. However, where human populations are involved things get more intense. Gustav roars into Cuba.
Because many of these action words are being used repeatedly - to the point of becoming rather irritating (case in point: churns... looms... ) - Dave & I would like to offer a few suggestions for future reports:
saunters
shuffles
undulates
hisses
flounders
oscillates
angers
flutters
quits
twirls
bruises
thwacks
teases
skips
theorizes
irritates
misses
pirouettes
smacks
meditates
limps
staggers
waffles
thunders
whines
strolls
boasts
tramples
defeats
disenfranchises
insults
flexes
hops
antagonizes
pillages
irks
ululates
weaves
sneezes
parlays
toys
sputters
scratches
flails
dampens
purchases
sways
puffs
wafts
parades
flops
protrudes
whiffs
**Technical note: The verbs have been listed in third person singular for the purpose of continuity and may not appear in headlines and/or articles in this form. Thank you.
1 comment:
Just in case anybody isn't sufficiently paniced already -
"New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called Gustav "the mother of all storms," saying its destruction could outstrip that from Katrina, which flooded much of his city. "You need to be scared," Nagin said of the Category 4 hurricane tearing along Cuba's western coast. "You need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century." "
Meanwhile, the McCain/Palin show is going to Mississippi to further tie up traffic and soak up government resources while they "get briefed" on the situation. As a Democrat, I'm happy to say Obama./Biden are keeping their butts out of the way.
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