EGG Foo Gun. Whacky Kazakhy Attacky. Show-’Toon Shrek.
These were headlines from the New York Post, the fifth largest newspaper in the United States, besides being the leading tabloid in New York.
When a robbery suspect was hospitalised in Brooklyn for a lung ailment, the policeman assigned to guard him was so sloppy in his job that the detainee’s buddies managed to smuggle in a gun for him.
The weapon was concealed inside a Chinese take-out meal and the New York Post probably had egg foo yong on its mind when it published the story last month.
As for now, Borat is big in America.
The mockumentary “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” has pulled in US$120mil (RM432mil) in less than two months.
But Kazakhstan was not happy with the satirical film which poked fun at the country as an undeveloped and racist nation with weird practices like drinking horse urine.
New York Post reported the story, calling it “Whacky Kazakhy Attacky”.
Another movie that made the news three weeks ago was Shrek. The adorable green ogre is reportedly making its Broadway debut in 2008, hence “Show-’Toon Shrek”.
The tabloid’s arch-rival Daily News loves to economise on words and spelling as well.
“2 BRs, river vu & peace of mind for Sliwa” was the headline of a story about a radio host, Curtis Sliwa, buying a two-bedroom apartment with good security and a great river view.
Such a manner of using the English language is tearing out the hair of language purists.
“The fondness for abbreviations and a casual way of writing is causing distress to English teachers. For me, I love the written word and the old grammar is still beautiful to me,” said university professor S. Schroeder.
She observed, however, that young people couldn't care less about it.
“I respect the fact that it is impossible to expect them to accept what I hold dear. Abbreviations are here to stay,” she said.
This was especially so with more and more people going online these days. “On the blogs, you can see that people use all kinds of English,” she said.
Another practice which most Americans frown upon is the excessive use of the word “like” by the youngsters.
This was nicely exemplified by a reader’s account relayed to a columnist in New York Post two months ago.
The reader, Joe La Zizza, was walking around the city when he heard a bunch of schoolgirls peppering their conversation with that word in almost every sentence.
He got exasperated and turned to them, saying: “Like, can you, like, tell me, like, where the Actors, like, Playhouse, like, is?”
One of the girls got upset and retorted: “You, like, making fun of us?”
Hot young celebrity Lindsay Lohan is a bad speller, according to the gossip pages which leaked out an e-mail from her that she sent to her friends. Lohan’s e-mail showed that she wrote “adequate” as “adequite”.
The next day, the newspaper ridiculed her with the heading “Maybee I Shud Go Bak Too Skul”.
Tabloids being tabloids love to give a twist to names of VIPs. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is “Bloomy” or “hizzoner” (his honour) and former president Bill Clinton is sometimes referred to by the rather unflattering “bubba”
“No freedom or fries in Bloomy’s Lean City,” the bold headline in New York Post declared when the mayor was delighted with a plan by a fast-food joint to stop the use of trans-fat oils on its menu.
The city authorities may have meant well as they forged ahead with plans for healthy food in restaurants but some New Yorkers are upset that Big Brother is telling them what not to eat.
When the Iraq Study Group recommended for a pullback of US combat troops by 2008, the New York Post (again!) depicted co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton in monkey suits.
Blaring “Surrender Monkeys” with the sub-heading “Iraq panel urges US to give up”, the page one cover got the goat of its readers.
Disgusting. Shameful. Absurd. They called the tabloid all sorts of names, fuming that the paper was immature in its reporting.
Sensationalism? Outrageous?
Guilty as charged, probably. Still, the tabloid and its long-time competitor Daily News are way ahead of many other dailies, even the respectable Washington Post, in the list of newspapers with the highest circulation in the United States.
