Sunday, January 29, 2017

Nice titanic titular

'Mary Tyler Moore Show' bloopers are just as charming and hilarious as you expect

 Possibly, though if they came at the end of the show's life they're probably a bit insufferable, like the last half of MASH.

But what I want to note is a diction and style issue. Here's how the article introduces the bloopers and refers to Moore's death: "As we continue to mourn the loss of its titanic, titular star, we have been coping the best way we know how. . ."

Okay, titanic, maybe, but generic and vague. Not a very strong word choice.

And if you have titanic, then titular, okay, you went for the alliteration. But by this time you're really wallowing in writing that is unmoored from Moore altogether.

Of course this is a silly little entertainment article that might have been written by AI precursors, so it can't bear much weight in any case. But still. What is really the purpose of noting that something is "titular" or "self titled" or some such? Possibly you need to eliminate the ambiguity of noting that there is no title apart from the performer's name, but usually it's pretty obvious what the title is. Mostly, all the writer is doing is a sort of meaningless check, telling us for no reason that he knows what "titular" means.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Titillating.

I think a bored writer was trying to sexualize the article

5:57 AM, January 29, 2017  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

eponymous would have been better but then again the entertainment press readers would probably be overwhelmingly frustrated by that term

5:59 AM, January 29, 2017  
Blogger ColumbusGuy said...

Anonymous 1, hey, I'm all in favor of it.

Anonymous 2, yes indeed, the best word for the concept, but same issue. Why bother telling us it's eponymous, titular and self titled? Hardly any reason at all.

10:36 AM, January 29, 2017  

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