By Zay N. Smith
News Headline: “NFL players more likely to develop depression, problems with thinking skills.”
QT NFL Concussion Count with IX Days to Go Until Super Bowl XLVII:
As of the end of the season and playoffs, NFL players had suffered CCXXXVI concussions.
QT hoped to estimate how many times NFL concussions might be mentioned during the Super Bowl broadcast.
But there is no Roman numeral for zero.
News Headline: “Democrats surrender on filibuster reform.”
News Headline: “Surgeon general issues call for spine donors.”
Sorry. Made the second one up.
News Headline: “Hail new combat roles for women.”
No comment from the Peace Movement, as it no longer exists.
News Headline: “House suspends the debt limit: Are Republicans in the driver’s seat?”
Are we asking if Republicans are in the driver’s seat of the government they are trying to put up on blocks, hoping to sell off parts?
Or maybe they can get behind the wheel and make vroom noises.
QT News Presented Without Comment:
A Roman Catholic hospital in Colorado is arguing in a malpractice suit that fetuses aren’t people.
Jerry Kohn, a Skokie reader, regarding a QT item about three-day weekends, writes:
“Just wanted to correct you. Veterans Day is always observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week it is.”
You are right.
It was a part of three-day weekends for a while under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.
People complained.
Still no complaints about Memorial Day, which will be shoved three days forward this year so our remembering of the soldiers and sailors who have laid down their lives for us can be more convenient.
News Item: “. . . take the debt ceiling off the table. . . .”
News Item: “. . . bring the debt ceiling to the floor. . . .”
News Item: “. . . suspend the debt ceiling until May 19. . . .”
News Item: “. . . aren’t voting to lift the debt ceiling. . . .”
Which poses the problem: How can we suspend the ceiling if we don’t first lift it off floor and back above the table?
News Item: “. . . watching this unfold in real time. . . .”
News Item: “. . . trying in real time to get the best information. . . .”
S.W., a Chicago reader, wants to know when did “at the time” become “in real time,” and when can we have “at the time” back?
News Headline: “Obama: We live in the greatest nation on Earth.”
News Headline: “17 million children go hungry in U.S.”
News Headline: “5 campus shootings since Sandy Hook.”
News Headline: “Oregon man begs on roadside for kidney.”
No one ever said the bar was set that high for Earth’s greatest nation.
News Item: “The Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project will hold a protest outside the. . . .”
For those who doubt there is any subject imaginable for which an organization does not exist.
News Headline: “Justin Bieber dethrones Lady Gaga to rule Twitter.”
We can all breathe easier now.
From the QT Archive of Knowledge:
+ Donald Trump has never used an ATM.
+ Dung beetles are capable of celestial navigation.
News Headline: “Naked carnival worker does flying tackle off roof, empties vacuum cleaner.”
You don’t want to know what he did after that.
QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
News Item: “. . . said he underwent training in order to become a youth leader and a background check.”
Jim West, a Macomb, Ill., reader writes:
“Since when did you need training to be a background check?”
As long as we are on the subject of things in general:
We will be hearing more about “gerrymanders” in the coming months.
Note to TV news announcers: The first two syllables should be pronounced GARY, not JERRY.
Thank you.
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Posted on January 25, 2013