Laura
4572
Loved that article. I shared it with my husband and he agreed.
Surprising indeed. What a terrific read. Thank you.
This is another example of why I like WaPost. That would have been 20 pages in the New Yorker, and god knows how the NY Times would messed it up.
Here is another story by the same writer telling the story of the county attorney in another rural Georgia county.
https://wapo.st/3Z0FhPk
“My role is not to represent community values,” he told them. “My role is to tell you what the damn law is.”
Other times he put it a different way: “Imagine a room, at least 40 by 40, no windows, one door. Now in each corner, put a bowl. Then in each bowl, put two parts warm milk and one part LSD. Then at the center of the room, put a cardboard box with 40 feral cats. Walk out and shut the door. Now walk back in and try to get the cats back in the box.”
DoubleG
4575
Washington Post is okay, but they’re no New York Times.
When you mate with shorter people, you’re potentially saving the planet by shrinking the needs of subsequent generations. Lowering the height minimum for prospective partners on your dating profile is a step toward a greener planet.
I do not think this is what shawty means…
Hey, look on the bright side - at least they didn’t refer to Bolsonaro as a “populist.”
I dunno, it seems like you’d lose a lot of information if you revamped it to her liking.
Brazilian voters ousted right-wing Jair Bolsonaro after a single tumultuous term on Oct. 30 and elected leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to replace him. Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters did not take defeat quietly.
Now a reader unfamiliar with Brazilian politics doesn’t know which office the two were fighting for (President? Prime minister? Commanding general? Manager at TGI Fridays?), and they are not informed that Lula was PoB once before. The one new piece of information they get is that Bolsonaro is right-wing, but that was kind of implied by the fact he was defeated by a leftist.
What? No. The suggested revision is either:
Brazilian voters ousted right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro after a single tumultuous term on Oct. 30 and elected the new President, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to replace him. Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters did not take defeat quietly.
or
Brazilian voters ousted former President Jair Bolsonaro after a single tumultuous term on Oct. 30 and elected the new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to replace him. Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters did not take defeat quietly.
At no point is entirely removing the term “President” suggested, just applying the term accurately. By any international standard, the current president of Brazil is Lula. The fact that Lula also used to be president in the past is irrelevant to the headline, and the term “former President” is being used by NYT to obfuscate the situation.
EDIT: to put this into American, imagine seeing this headline in the NYT on January 7, 2021:
US voters ousted President Donald Trump after a single tumultuous term on Nov. 3rd and elected the leftist former Vice-President Joe Biden to replace him. Some of Trump’s supporters did not take defeat quietly.
It would seem like the NYT was jumping through hoops to avoid referring to Biden as the current president.
I don’t know the rules in Brazil but the reporters should: In the US it is official etiquette that former Presidents of the US keep using the title for life, even after leaving office( so President Carter, Clinton, Bush2, Obama, and Trump are still addressed as such). It can be confusing, especially in cases where someone can be an ex-President, also honorifically still “President” and maybe also Presidential Candidate and future President.
Yeah, that’s sort of niggling style guide detail is what the NYT headline writer would fall back on as an excuse … but it doesn’t explain why Lula alone gets “former” in front of “President” when he is, y’know, currently President, while now-only-former President Bolsonaro does not.
dtolman
4582
Because it lets you know that he’s returning to an office he once occupied? I think that’s valuable information.
Sure, but in context, it gets more complicated. Their wording created a problem that goes beyond just basic information.
There are probably odd editorial forces at work behind the scenes with objectives like:
- You have to tell the whole story in the first sentence, for the people who only read that far
- The first sentence and first paragraph can only be X complexity, Y words, etc
- You can assume people will know current positions better than history (people know who is president today, but not 1 month ago)
- etc…
“Supporters of defeated President Jaír Bolsonaro attempt to oust his replacement, newly elected President Inacio Lula da Silva.”
I believe the correct term is President Redux.
Which is weird, because in my lifetime the official etiquette used to be (at least to around Clinton-8sh times) “there is only one President at a time and only that person gets the title”.
Official as in Miss Manners/Emily Post. I don’t know that the State Department has ever weighed in?
ETA: oh, hey US embassy in UK:
I’ve found quite a bit of disagreement on the matter. Given the language belongs to the people who speak it, I wouldn’t put TOO much stock in what any one source says, even the U.S. government.
That said, it’s always annoyed me endlessly to hear someone addressed as “President ______” long after they’ve left office. Just get over it, folks; I’m sure they did (except the The Orange Calamity). When speaking or writing about a time in history, however, it makes complete sense to use the title that was contemporary to the subject.
ShivaX
4589
Likewise, but it’s also what happens with a shitload of titles.
At least in the military they get a (Ret.), but they still get called General or Colonel anyway in speech because it’s awkward to say “we welcome Retired General Smith” or similar nonsense.
Thing is, President works really well with “ex” on it, unlike military ranks. Because they’re literally Ex-Presidents. They have no more authority or power and in most cases couldn’t ever do it again if they wanted to.
