Sunday, September 20, 2009

When is a quote just something you say?

I had a dental appointment the other day & I picked up a copy of Time magazine while in the waiting room.   I opened it up and found myself reading the "quotes" of the week.  This brought back a flood of memories and aggravations.

Memories, because it's the first time I've read a Time magazine in a long time.  Aggravations because I never did like their quotes.  It's the worst section of the magazine.

In my mind a quote or quotation should illustrate a broad truth, with no further explanation needed.   Here's one:  "You'll keep growing until you stop".  No greater truth than that, on more than one level.  You don't need to know anything else about it.  

Your typical "Time" quote is something like this:  "It's a security issue".   Then that statement is followed by several sentences explaining who said it, why he/she said it, the circumstances surrounding it,  a brief history of whatever it was referring to, and on and on.  

In my opinion that's not a quote.  It's just something somebody said, and I'm not sure what warrants its printing in a national news magazine.  That section of the magazine should be called "Some things some people said this week".   You can quote me on that.

2 comments:

linlah said...

Perfectly stated.

A Valdese Blogger said...

linlah: I don't know about that, but it was stated. Thanks!

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