“Officials from the Will County Sheriff’s Department, University Park Police Department and the Canadian National Railway, which owns the tracks in the area, were at the scene.”
Do they intentionally hire incredibly stupid people as journalist/reporters, or does it just seem that way?
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/04/amtrak-train-strikes-vehicle-in-south-suburb.html
Amazing what a big difference could be made by a small change - like placing the comma after, “tracks,” and losing the following three words.
So, did the driver qualify for the Darwin award, or was it just a really near miss? Obviously, this media critter didn’t know who to ask, or, more likely, how to phrase the question.
Chuck
How about Metra, which seems to own the cars in the background?
Actually, the reporter was closer to the mark than you wish to admit. The Metra Electric District is parallel to and basically shares a right-of-way with the CN main line. Both are formerly Illinois Central lines although the electric lines were always separate for operating purposes.
Keep in mind that a reporter is often sent to whereever the news story is, not necessarily in a field in which he has thorough background knowledge. The grammar of the rewrite man is on the mark, too.
Greyhounds;
"
“…Do they intentionally hire incredibly stupid people as journalist/reporters, or does it just seem that way?..”
[soapbox] I’d guess that this statement may be very close to the truth. Journalism as a Professional Pursuit (read a profession in which one takes personal pride in THEIR product) at least as far as the Newspaper business is a dying art, it has become a JOB designed to fill space in print.[2c]
Interest in content seems to be foreign.[banghead]
This seems to be especially true where incident reportage regarding anything rail, or even transportation in general, seems to be beyond the avarage newspaper ‘reporter’ to grasp, let alone understand. [banghead]
Sorry all, Pet Peve.[sigh]
“Officials from the tracks’ owners, Canadian National Railway, plus from the Will County…”
“Officials from…Department and from track owners Canadian National Railway…”
“Officials from…Department and Canadian National Railway (track owners), were…”
“Canadian National Railway officials as well as WIlls County…” [assume reader would understand the CN owns the track.]
As long as they can fill the space it gets printed.
Besides, the people above them don’t know enough about the Real World to know the difference anyway.
No worse than a reporter in my local paper that stated a couple weeks ago she was going to start BUMP DRFATING Semis OUT OF HER WAY WITH HER HONDA CIVIC.
Yeah, good luck with that! Some people!
From the linked article :
“Canadian National Railway, which owns the tracks is investigating circumstances related to the crash, including whether any signal systems were deployed, said Spokesman Patrick Waldron. University Park police are also investigating.”
Other than a comma missing after tracks, what’s is the problem? It is perfectly clear that the tracks are owned by CN.
The statement in the actual article appears to differ from greyhound’s quotation, for some unexplained reason.
Since this was an Amtrak train the video camera will tell the tale!
They updated and rewrote the story. In other words, they fixed it.
There is nothing syntactically or grammatically wrong with your quote of the original article, either. The modifying clause to indicate ownership of RR lines in the area is perfectly clear in its referent. It refers to CNR, not “officials.”
I found that the reporter, Deanese Williams-Harris, has a masters in journalism from U of I-Springfield and works for the Chicago Tribune.
It dangles! Rewriting, rewording, reworking must be done to clear up the true and clear meaning. Otherwise all of them own the track in question. We have gotten away from a lot of proper grammar, some by neglect, non-chalance, laziness, ingnorance, and just plain not caring. A misplaced modifier, phrase, or punctuation mark will make all the difference in the world. Even the most educated sometimes slip up. I remember getting a piece of commercial copy to read that was written by a newly graduated college English major: it was so full of grammatical errors it couldn’t be read and still make sense! How the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are interpreted differently by different people at different times is a good example of what properly applied rules of grammar are all about.
I worked at a local newspaper temporarily while I was in between jobs. Most reporters are minimum wage employees with no experience in the subject areas they are asked to cover, so they have no idea what questions to ask. Others worked on a commission basis and didn’t get paid if they didn’t write ‘x’ number of articles per week. A formal education of any type was not a prerequisite.
"Officials from the Will County Sheriff’s Department, University Park Police Department and the Canadian National Railway, which owns the tracks in the area, were at the scene."
There is no “it dangles.” “Dangles” customarily refers to a dangling participle, not a modifying clause, which in this case is properly set off to clearly modify Canadian National Railway as the owner of the tracks. If ownership were attributed to the multiple agents, then, of course, the verb “own” would be in the plural case. As it is in the singular case, there can be no confusion about ownership by anyone remotely cognizant of the conventions of formal written English.
Got to agree with schlimm. But I have been confused from the start about just what was wrong with the original quote; it also disagreed with what I read when I brought up the link.
The OP had copied this from the link:
“Officials from the Will County Sheriff’s Department, University Park Police Department and the Canadian National Railway, which owns the tracks in the area, were at the scene.”
I never construed from the above quote that the tracks were owned by anyone other than the Canadian National. Also note that there IS a comma after Railway and after area. This construction is just dandy, but when I went to school, a comma was also needed after Department. That ‘requirement’ has been dropped, but in which year I don’t know.
I was also taught that commas should not be used around phrases that are necessary for proper meaning or understanding. I would not have put commas around which owns the tracks in the area as they are quite meaningful, and I definitely would have put a comma after Department!
For example: I stopped at Home Depot, Barnes and Noble and Sears and Roebuck.
Who would like a comma after Noble?
Art
Art – Having spent 33+ years in the U. S. Army, I would like a comma after “Noble”. The Army Regulation regarding ‘Preparing and Managing Correspondence’ requires it. I’ll stick with what I was taught. Who ever heard of BarnesNobleSearsRoebuck? Maybe some journalists…
Hays
Putting a comma after “Department” is called ‘the Cambridge comma’. I found that out by reading a book entitled “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”. It is about punctuation and both funny and informative. Strunk and White’s “Guide to Style” used to be the Chicago Tribune’s standard for writing and they favored the ‘Cambridge Comma’. As do I. There is a mathematical analogy:
a + b x c + d is ambiguous to many (not to all). Are the additions to be done before or after the multiplication?
(a + b) x (c + d) … removes the ambiguity.
For words:
a, b, c, and d … separates the entities properly, to my way of thinking.
Jack
What’s wrong with the sentence is not the use of commas. This facts are wrong.
The photo shows a Metra Electric train adjacent to the wrecked SUV. The Metra train is on Metra owned tracks. Those particular tracks are “In the Area” and not owned by the CN.