Fox Writers Contract Horatio Caine Disease

ellipsis n.
1. the omission of one or more words that are obviously understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete
2. marks or a mark (as …) indicating an omission (as of words) or a pause

Like so many other common sense principles, the proper usage of an ellipsis seems to have eluded the people who make these headlines. While I was sad to see the trusty old Impact font go, I had no idea what Fox News had in store. Since adopting a more professional looking typeface for their horrible front-page abominations, whoever is in charge of creating these things has decided to introduce the previously rare concepts of emphasis and timing. As you might expect, this has already gotten completely out of hand.

Before I even get to the topic of Fox's egregious use of punctuation, I want to point out the abuse of font formatting. Three types can be seen in each of the images to the left: size variation, capitalization and boldfacing. The reason for using all three at once is beyond my comprehension, as I feel that one is sufficient to get your point across (maybe two if you're desperate). Whenever I read these, I always feel like someone is shouting at me and the volume level is constantly fluctuating, which is very much like listening to Glenn Beck. It gives me a headache and I wish they would stop with the theatrics.

This brings me to my original objection, the molestation of the ellipsis. Can someone please explain this to me? In none of these examples is an ellipsis necessary or even appropriate. The first two come the closest to making sense, because the headlines are referencing something that was said by another person. Unfortunately, neither of these are wrapped in quotation marks, which means that there is no reason to indicate an omission. It seems to me that they are doing this, much like the previously mentioned formatting free-for-all, purely for dramatic effect. This is no real surprise since Fox News definitely specializes in beating your brain to mush with nonsense for the sake of being loud.

If I ignore the bad formatting, the ellipses still linger in my mind. Instead of a maniac with a megaphone, I now imagine David Caruso softly reading the first line when suddenly, he pauses, removes his sunglasses, takes a deep breath, and says something that makes him seem like the biggest jackass on the planet.

Fox Breaks Their Only Camera, Makes Mohammed Feel Ugly

I guess the lack of photograph here is supposed to poke fun at the censorship of Mohammed. Despite the apparent, I'm actually going to assume that Fox was just too afraid to post a real image, which is completely understandable considering no other major news media outlets would, either. I almost admired their mocking humor for a moment, but then I realized that I was looking at a national news network and not Comedy Central, and my admiration instantly turned to shame.

You Can Have My Salt When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Hands

The people at Fox have become so paranoid that the government is going to take away their cheeseburgers that they have begun kicking their fear campaign into high gear. Let's ignore the "Shake-Up" joke for a minute. "War on Salt" is a term I haven't heard before, but if history has taught us anything, it's that we will soon have another Bill O'Reilly book unleashed upon us, and Glenn Beck will shower us with tears. I saw the obligatory reference to the "Nanny State", but then something else caught my eye. The Fox website has a regular feature called "YOU DECIDE," which is a poll that allows readers to express themselves about whatever Fox is scaring them about on any given day. The problem is that almost every poll on the site indicates near-unanimous support for an answer that you know will win the contest before you even see the results. Yes, it's that predictable. The funny thing about this poll is that the most popular response doesn't have that much to do with the article, which mentions that the FDA is trying to do something about the dangerous amounts of sodium food manufacturers put into just about everything. No one is talking about outlawing your precious Twinkies or even the ability to pour tons of table salt over your meals. Fox is clearly confused, because using the title "Should Government Regulate What Americans Eat," proves that they don't understand what the FDA does or why it exists. This explains a lot, because it seems to me that these people ate way too much lead paint during childhood.

You're Lucky Mother Nature Even Lets You Live

Just when you thought it was safe to have a picnic in the park, that bitch comes rolling into town to blow the roof off your house. I think the only logical solution is to start building yourself a Cold War era fallout shelter now, so you can finish by summer and then spend the rest of 2010 underground. Because, if there is one thing we can count on, it's that weather forecasts are always accurate.

So Crazy, They Had To Give It A Face

The use of quotation marks and the likeness of John Boehner (who actually said it) is a thinly veiled attempt at hiding the fact that the people over at Fox believe every word of it.