The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Tim Russert dies of heart attack

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I was saddened to hear that Tim Russert of NBC News and long-time host of Meet the Press collapsed in his office today and died of a heart attack at age 58.

Those of us who consider ourselves journalists, as well as those of us like this Turkey who pretend to be journalists, can view the corpus of work assembled over Russert’s journalistic career as a model of integrity and substance, something to live up to. Russert never shied away from asking the tough question and never arrived at an interview without doing his research. He didn’t shoot from the hip; he took aim, took a breath, and squeezed off his shots, which seldom missed the mark.

Russert was serious when he needed to be, but he frequently mixed in a lighter side, which revealed his humanity. Family was everything to him, and always came first. He appeared to genuinely like the vast preponderance of his interviewees, who responded by returning the favor. He always appeared to be humble, never full of himself like many other journalists. He was always himself.

Although family and work came first, Tim Russert was a devout football fan. His beloved Buffalo Bills never won the Super Bowl for him, which he deserved at least once.  It is sad that he did not live to see that dream come true.

I watched Meet the Press every Sunday, and it was because of Tim Russert that I did. I feel as if I have lost a friend.

My heart goes out to the Russert Family and to all who knew him. Saddened though I am, I cannot presume to imagine the pain of their loss.

That said…

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Take all I have written heretofore with a grain of salt. Now I’ll tell you what I really want you to believe. This is my verbal ploy to show you that I have examined all sides of the issue, whether or not I actually have done so, and introduce my real feeling at the tail end, using the obnoxiously vogue and increasingly trite lead-in “that said.”

Class, the subject of my rant today was going to be “that said.” The subject phrase’s overuse has been getting on my nerves for perhaps ten years. Through this poultry platform, I have previously written about vogue phrases such as “it is what it is,” “it is all good,” and “not a problem,” but those were colloquialisms, while “that said” has found its way into stilted journalistic prose and into the annoying inscriptions of those who would emulate the stilted journalists—even bloggers. 🙂

“That said” has been kicking around for some time now, coming from the same clowns who gave us the non-epidemiological meaning (or vague lack of same) of the term “tipping point.” While the latter phrase might be used metaphorically to colorfully illustrate a point, the only use of “that said” is to flag a terminal thought as overridingly valid, essentially negating the verbal vacillation leading up to it. Real words such as “however” and “nevertheless” are being replaced by this abomination and your Turkey doesn’t like it! So, yes, that was what I was going to write about today.

That said, in doing research about “that said,” I came across a New York Times piece written almost six years ago by the great William Safire that covers the subject more thoroughly, more humorously, and more conclusively than this Pretend-O-Turkey could ever hope to. If you are as interested in the evolution of our language as I am and you lament the overuse of these vogue constructs as much as this irascible old Turkey, you must read Safire’s article.