"Graf"

[Leslie Savan]

As a journalist, I've been saying "graf" for decades. I mention it on p. 196
of Slam Dunks and No-Brainers (in the chapter "Populist Pop and the Regular
Guy"):

        Of course, the jargon that most occupations develop to save time
also bonds its members by creating an insiderness--if you talk that
dropped-syllable talk, you're a regular guy within the goup. (When I say
"graf" instead of "paragraph" or "parens" instead of "parentheses," I feel
like I'm part of a hard-hitting bunch of Front Page reporters.)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 8:35 PM
Subject: "Graf"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "Graf"
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>
> The term "graf," I guess, is journalistese for "paragraph."  I don't see
> it in the OED or Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate.  Is this a fairly
> common word that has eluded the dictionaries?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
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