Verb Rationing Afflicts Broadcast News Media
At one time or another, Americans have experienced shortages in petroleum, water, rubber, grains, sugar, butter, cheese, meats and flu vaccines. The latest shortage may be in a part of speech. Broadcast news media appear to have enacted verb rationing. Verbs once were the stock-in-trade of action-oriented news media. Today, however, many television and radio newscasts are peppered with sentence fragments lacking verbs, masquerading as sentences. In an evening newscast, an anchor declared: “
