West Penn Today - The back Line

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Inside joke to John Swindler:  Where is Frank Goldsmith when you need him?

brathke at juno.com wrote:

> And I have a similar pet peeve, although it relates to pomposity of the
> spoken, rather than the written, word.
>
> Broadcast journalism has always taught that the the emphasis in station
> identification should be on the STATION, not the verb, yet I continue to
> hear - especially on public radio - "This IS station XYZ", rather than
> the proper "THIS is station XYZ."
>
> Enough on that, back to trolleys...
>
> Bob 7/10
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, 10 Jul 2000 11:30:08 -0400 "Edward H. Lybarger"
> <twg at pulsenet.com> writes:
> > I have a major pet peeve.  It involves the continued use of the
> > highly
> > pompous and insulting "THE West Penn," "THE This," "THE That" that
> > railfans
> > like to use to assert their familiarity with subjects.  Yes, some of
> > the
> > companies promoted themselves like this, West Penn included, in the
> > early
> > years.  It was a promotional tactic employed to intimidate the
> > public into
> > believing a company was more important and/or more powerful than was
> > actually the case. But West Penn had the good taste to cease it at
> > an early
> > date and call themselves the West Penn System or the West Penn
> > Railways
> > Company, as appropriate, which frankly sound more prosperous that
> > the phony
> > appellation.  Besides, the other is bad English.
> >
> > OK, nothing personal, but it needed to be said.
>
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