NPRSpeak

[Rick Kennerly]

>
>Now I submit that this actually crosses the line.  "...ask the judge TO
>disallow" would be fine, and so would "ask THAT the judge disallow," but t

I admit that it's odd.  But it's also spoken.  My sense of Bob Edward's style has always been that while he works from written text or notes he tends to freelance what is written so that it sounds more natural when spoken.  Unfortunately, he sometimes talks himself into a corner in the process.

On the other hand, I've heard NPR commentators read themselves right into a different corner, victims of the copywriters.  Most instances are pretty funny because the sentence frequently doesn't make any sense at all and the commentator is left with the problem of stumbling back through to correct the phrase or just letting it go.

Sometimes I'll hear an error on the first live broadcast and notice that it's been corrected in the subsequent rollovers. Sometimes, the editors just let it go.

Frankly, I find the showmanship and daring of live radio broadcasts worth the occasional flub.

rhk