In today’s Doonesbury, a new (and younger) audience confronts a stylistic quirk of some television hews reporting:
This time the participles (PRP, PSP) are pretty much a side issue, though their sense of urgency — I would say, rather, “immediacy” — appears right away, in panel 2.
In a previous appearance (“Participles of urgency”, from 9/21/15), the participles played a central role. At the end of the news story:
Reporter: From all of us, using only participles, conveying urgency, good night!
Mike Doonesbury: From me, fed up, my dreams of a complete sentence shattered, good-bye!
The importance of complete sentences in conversation is over-rated. Seriously over-rated.
But of course a consistent heavily participial style would be quirky and obtrusive, just as ridiculous as Garry Trudeau makes it out to be.
Leave a Reply