Full words? Obsolete!
At least on Fox News. I took this photo of the TV the other day. I understand abbreviating things when space is tight—like when Tweeting or texting— but there was clearly space left to spell out the words “former” and “governor.” Was the caption person typing this with his thumbs?
(Interestingly, they didn’t choose to replace “for with “four.” Why not! What do they have against numbers in words!)
Two more letters and they could’ve written “Lawyers” instead of “Attys.” Periods at the end of an abbreviation, or apostrophes in the word, used to be at tip off that letters had been left out, but this way, “Attys” kind of looks like it’s an actual word, doesn’t it?
Had they just written “Blagojevich’s lawyers ask for mistrial today,” they would’ve had a caption that was three characters shorter, sans abbreviations. Of course, my solution leaves out the fact that he’s a former governor, but that level of specificity seems kind of unnecessary, considering that there is currently only one Blagojevich in the news. Silly, silly Fox.
