Journalists are expected to choose words wisely and string them together even more carefully while writing reports. However, the same is not expected of those who formulate media invites and press releases. The result is usually unintentionally funny lines that provide brief entertainment to those reading it.
A recent example was an invitation from an organisation named after a departed soul. Since the organisation is dedicated to someone who is no longer alive, the name of the association is “Late XX Association.”
Without giving it a though, members of the organisation invited mediapersons to an event starting the invite like this: “The Late XX invites you to…” It took a while to understand to clear the confusion between how a dead man had sent a personal invite and why an association would prefix ‘Late’ to someone who might be very much alive.
Leg-pulling
When press conferences do not get ‘newsy’ enough, presspersons begin quizzing important personalities. At an end of a press conference of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, a reporter, in an unrelated context, began to ask the CM of how he would deal with rebels in the party. “Nobody in our party pulls anybody’s leg. We only walk with each other holding each other’s hand,” he said as his cabinet colleagues nodded profusely and said that their party symbol is testimony to that.
