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MORNING REPORT/RNZ
RNZ s Morning Report took a break from shortly before Christmas until last Monday. That often left stand-in journalists with little option but to interview each other, writes Jane Bowron. (First published December 21, 2020)
OPINION: Towards the year’s end, major dictionary publishers reveal their word of the year. Most of 2020’s words will raise few surprised eyebrows. For Collins, Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com it was
pandemic. Oxford University Press, however, ran a different Word of the Year campaign from usual. Acknowledging that 2020 has required rapid change and adaptation, in language as well as in other aspects of our lives, Oxford’s lexicographers prepared a 38-page report called “Words of an Unprecedented Year”.
IAN MEIKLEÂ muses about words.Â
WORDS are to me as horseshoes are to a blacksmith; I forge the adjectives, hammer the verbs and cobble them into sentences that are shaped into paragraphs, columns, pages and papers.Â
Ian Meikle.
Am I a wordsmith, I vainly wondered. “A skilled user of words,” Google confirmed. A lifetime in journalism hasn’t been a waste then, though truth be told, I’ve never felt particularly gifted with an especially grandiose vocabulary (though I do know what
crapulent
I
feel words. Other wordsmiths’ toes curl at the mere mention of a gerund and they take split infinitives very personally. Not me. I like the metre (rhythm) of active news reporting and can be very forgiving in my editing, favouring substance over form.Â