A wordsmith's dream
Reporters don't get to use certain words, like penis, often.
Call it what you want (the words crushing oppression come to mind), but some words don't get their due in the newspaper.
So, when a reporter gets to use the words sorcerers, black magic and penises in the first paragraph, you can be assured that the gods of journalism have smiled down upon that writer and granted a rare miracle.
A lucky Joe from the Reuters news service got to do just that in this story.
(cue up "miracle music," with harps and opera singers. . .)
Amazing.
The story is also blessed with the headline, "Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital."
It also uses the word penis more than four times!
(cue the juvenile laughing at the repeated usage of the word penis.)
This may seem wacky for those who don't write for a newspaper, but we reporters are really limited at what we can say sometimes.
We do, however, get a kick out of reading stories like this one, that couldn't be better if it was made up.
Rock on.
sharon · April 28, 2008 11:58 AM
All I could do was laugh, and laugh, oh and laugh some more. Can you imagine the carnage here if someone tried that? Yeah guys would laugh it off until the first time they couldn't perform, then things would get ugly.
Gina Foertsch · April 25, 2008 4:55 PM
Penis!
I had to get that out of the way.
It's things like this that make me glad that I read my sister's blog, even when I don't always tell her I'm reading it.
I'm really proud of her :-)