October 19, 2006

Maybe I'm just overreacting.

That's possible, you know.

But I simply must say ARRRRGHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!

They've gone and done it AGAIN!

Auburn teacher wins $25 grand from Milken Foundation

STUPID AP HEADLINE WRITER!! STOP PUTTING GRAND IN THE HEADLINE!!

Look, you can see that and think someone misspelled "grant" and wonder why anyone would care about a twenty-five dollar grant. Or you can read it as "twenty five dollars grand". BUT IF YOU MEAN TO SAY TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS, WRITE "$25,000"! If you can't bring yourself to write that, just write "25-grand" BUT LEAVE OUT THE DOLLAR SIGN!

I figure this must be some sort of vast journalistic conspiracy designed to drive me even more insane. Sorta like the way George Bush says "Internets" and "nucular" to make the lefties come unglued.

Then again, as folks say, never ascribe to malice what can more easily be blamed on ignorance.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 19, 2006 10:19 AM
Comments

I'm not sure the 25-grand would be correct. We'd use "$25 thousand" in financial statement presentation, or $25K more casually. But "grand" itself is slang, or at least (due to it's increasing usage) non-standard terminology, and I, personally, don't like to see it in a headline at all.

Unless, of course, the "$25 grand" was coming to me.

Posted by: Diane at October 19, 2006 10:44 AM

Exactly. This is the third time I've noticed this in the past month or so, and it's beginning to really irk me. As I said before, if you want to sound like some stump-necked goodfella, do it somewhere other than a simple headline. Or if you can't resist breaking the rules, break them the RIGHT WAY.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 19, 2006 10:53 AM

Of course what gets me is that adding a comma and three zeros after the number in question would still take up less space than tacking on the stupid old "grand."

Posted by: Sarah G. at October 19, 2006 10:54 AM

One explanation is something Kenny Smith told me about--AP has feeds for broadcast and for print, and sometimes the broadcast copy will have weird things like writing "NBC" as "N-B-C" or saying 1 (b) Billion Dollars" to make it clear what is being reported. It could be that the headline writer is doing voice copy and thinks "grand" is somehow more clear than "thousand." Which doesn't excuse being a moron, but, hey.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 19, 2006 11:10 AM