SUNDAY NEWS

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Editor Marv Adams in his column “Focusing on letters” says: “The letter in question was easy to trim because it said one thing over and over.”  “I’ve written here before that most long letters contain redundancies.”  “Don’t make the same statement twice (albeit with different words). Or thrice.”

WATCHDOG: Talk about “redundancies”!

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Updated: November 15, 2009 — 1:29 pm
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  1. Anonymous

    The ridiculous 150-word limit imposed on all writers except paid employees of the Sunday News has reduced potentially thought-provoking letters to little more than sound-bites, most of them not worth reading.

  2. Anonymous

    Having been trained as an engineer, I consider redundancies to be a good thing.

    It’s also important in communications. A basic rule in speechmaking is to tell the audience what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. That’s not appropriate for news stories, where the “inverted pyramid” continues to be the rule (despite the fact that hot-lead typesetting – the reason the inverted pyramid was invented – mostly disappeared in the late 1960s,) Letters to the editor, though, serve a different function, as their primary purpose is to persuade, rather than to inform.

    I would note that the Sunday News compensated for Marv Adams’ redundancies by lopping the rightmost three columns off the crossword puzzle. It makes it difficult to solve a crossword puzzle when the answer to one clue is “czechrepublic” and there’s only room for “czechrepub” and right beneath it, the answer is “race” and there’s only room for “r”. Even more difficult to solve was the cryptoquote, right beneath the crossword, where encrypted words had been lopped in half. Arrgh! I don’t feel a refund is appropriate, but I’d sure like
    to have the brain cells back that I burned up, trying to solve that cryptoquote.

  3. Anonymous

    Sorry Marv. The letters are much more interesting to read than your redundant columns… must be tough to be your daughter.

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