News Collision!

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6169915.stm

A cyclist, training for the Skiing in the Winter Olympics, is dazzled by car lights, crashes, and passer-by knocks on door for help which just happens to be Richard Hammond's place.

News agency explodes trying to choose one category for item.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Umm, copyeditors of the UK, please unite to tell me the use of hyphens here is not some British style and just a glaring error:

Mr Gellatly, an occupational health worker who cycles 50 miles-a-day...

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

No, I think that is his actual top speed.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

a "Miles-a-day" is a specially adapted bicycle.

He cycles 50 at the same time.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

I actually can't think of anything that could properly mean, unless there were some curious sub-rule where the British (and only the British) pluralize "mile-a-day" (a noun referring to your daily mile, like "two-a-days" in sports practice) along the same lines as "attorneys general" (which would be stupid, since pluralizing the "miles" part subverts the whole point of the term).

This is just the kind of pedantry I needed after learning, last Friday, that Webster's uses the hyphenated "round-trip" for both the adjective and noun forms (so you'd say "there's a $20 surcharge per round-trip"). (!!! WTF !!!)

Anyway, sorry, "news collision," continue.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

I'm trying to think of other celebrity rescues/medical help & whatnot. I can only come up with Harrison Ford finding some lost hikers with his helicopter, and Werner Herzog helping Joaquin Pheonix out of a car wreck.

― kingfish in absentia (kingfish), Monday, 11 December 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

I had to read it three times to fully understand, and I'm not sure I get it.
Your summing up makes more sense.
The "five W's" of journalism seem to have taken on a will of their own.

― alison murchie (aimurchie), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

Five Ws of UK journalism = work, Wembley, willies, whistling in the dark, and George?

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 11 December 2006 18:31 (nineteen years ago)

Yes! Sort of. Where, When, Why, Who. And George. He is all of the five W's, really.

― alison murchie (aimurchie), Monday, 11 December 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, don't worry, I know the real ones, though I'd like them more if they were "Who, When, Why, Whence, and Whither."

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 11 December 2006 21:12 (nineteen years ago)

wageman?

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 08:58 (nineteen years ago)

how the hell did the BBc come upon this, tbo rather tame, story?

― Ste (fuzzy), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 09:21 (nineteen years ago)

Local radio.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 09:27 (nineteen years ago)

Many of these stories are hastily cut-and-pasted from radio scripts, hence their being absolutely stuffed with mistakes. It is shoddy.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 10:27 (nineteen years ago)

At the end of that article it tells us that Mr Gellatly cycles 250 miles a week. This part is devoid of hyphens. Though very useful as an accompaniment to the earlier part of the story if you care about how many days per week he cycles 50 miles. Does this alter the meaning and usage of "miles-a-day"?

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

five years pass...

PM urges king to reform Bahrain

I didn't even know they'd split up!

― Jilted John and Marsha (MarkG oo la showaddywaddy), Monday, 12 December 2011 15:13 (fourteen years ago)

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