Witnesses said he was lifted vertically out of the water by the creature, which retreated after a single bite.My son, reading the story, caught the error: "lifted vertically." To lift means to raise, and the last time I checked, raising is a vertical movement.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Stating the obvious
Often in covering tragic and dramatic news stories, reporters get carried away and lose their writing discipline. Such was the case with last week's shark attack off Solana Beach, Calif., that killed triathlete David Martin.
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3 comments:
I beg to differ. If the shark took the swimmer in a 90 degree angle to the surface of the ocean, it would have lifted him vertically. Sharks are also known to attack at less than a 90-degree angle. In that case, the correct phrase would have ben that the shark lifted the swimmer "perpendicularly," or even orthogonally.
However, it would have been more descriptive if the writer said the shark lifted the swimmer x feet out of the water.
Point taken, Lou. However, Malcolm, in high school freshman fashion, argues that there is always a vertical vector that's part of an upward movement.
For my part, I'm guided by the spirit of this blog which is to emphasize to writers to question all words in the heat of writing battle.
Fewer is beautiful.
Orthogonal? It involves a direction that has no vertical vector. If the shark attached at less than a 90 degree angle (sub-orthogonally?), there would be no lift. It would have been more of a drag. On second thought, I'd consider any attack by a shark a drag. A major drag.
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