Of course, in normal conversation, it would be verbally emphasized as “Here is the latest NEWS!” Unless, we’ve all be subjected to a bunch of earlier topics, we’d be ready for “the LATEST news.” Broadcasters, of course, cannot make this distinction. Sing-song delivery is required. The second-to-last sentence in the story must end going UP. And the last sentence must end with a big surPRIZE. The surprise is the lack of insight, the lack of updating performances, and the lack of conversational professsionalism.
When I listen to radio newscasts and the sing-song delivery style (one that has not changed since Edward R. Murrow and the Great War), I always think of Dondi.
What I mean to SAY is that I always THINK of DONDI.
And when I think of DONDI, I think of my brother-buddy-radio-compadre Rick. He is one fellow who might REMEMBER those old comic STRIPS!
(I realize it doesn’t make sense, with emphasis that way. It should be COMIC strips, because that is the way every English-speaking human would verbalize: I read a COMIC book. Of course, we’re talking about this being spoken by broadcasting news people, who have to make a sing-song out of it. At the end of a sentence, the inflection must rise. It isn’t COMIC book any longer. That last word must be emphasized. It is a comic BOOK. He was driving a pickup TRUCK. Not a pickup CAR. No. I’m sorry. To HECK and back with your broadCASTING, it is, and will forever be, as spoken by the drivers, a PICKUP truck. Not a pickup CAR. What do you drive? It’s a PICKUP truck. Same with a COMIC book. It is never spoken as a comic BOOK. Always, a COMIC book. Except among broadcasters. I’d urge you to listen to affirm this assertion, but I just can’t recommend listening to this stuff. Live broadcasts? Okay. On the scene reporters, not reading from a script? Okay. Recorded reports? I’d rather stick a pencil-POINT somewhere in my FACE.)
Ooops.
I just realized this is an old-timer rant. One that no one cares aBOUT! (Normally, that would have been spoken as a “rant that no one CARES about.” But broadcasters only emphasize the last part, in this instance the final syllable. aBOUT. and I digress.)
Dondi?
Well. He could have been an excellent broadcaster. He was always EMPHASIZING those important words.
On second thought. Dondi, that old-timey comic strip character, could never have succeeded as a broadcaster.
He emphasized the IMPORTANT words while riding in a PICKUP truck in a COMIC strip, not a comic STRIP.
Oops.
Old-timer rant. Exposed.