WaPo reporter: "the House Sargent at Arms just walked into the SCIF"

[Leghorn21]

OH boy: the House Sargent at Arms just walked into the SCIF...

Link to tweet

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. If this was in reverse the dems would be in jail already.

NOT UNTIL we take DRASTIC steps to deal with TRAITORS will anything change and I dont mean violence but I do mean ARRESTS

[HAB911]

2. Time to lock up some children

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!

[BumRushDaShow]

4. ABC News had reported a source saying that the Capitol Police

had "swept the room" and one of the GOP members of the Intel Committee had started "collecting cell phones".

GOP Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, sensing a problem, began collecting cell phones from members, who are supposed to deposit them in a cabinet outside before entering the room, according to Connolly and others in the room.

The Republicans who forced their way into the room argued they should be able to question the witness even though they aren't members of the committees conducting the impeachment inquiry.

/snip

Capitol Police swept the hearing room where Cooper was scheduled to testify after members brought their electronic devices into the secure facility, according to sources. It was not immediately clear when proceedings would restart.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-defense-official-questioned-military-aid-ukraine-withheld/story?id=66469001

[bdamomma]

13. Thank God.

we need to lock them up period.

[MelissaB]

5. K&R. Off to the Greatest

[Beringia]

6. WaPo reporter, she looks like she is about 15 years old in her bedroom tweeting

[demmiblue]

7. ...

[Aviation Pro]

8. How is this comment relevant?

We'll wait.

[Beringia]

10. Good keep waiting

[LanternWaste]

15. I s'pose if one is easily flummoxed by wolves and coyotes, yours would be a common mistake

[Beringia]

45. flummoxed? how am I flummoxed?

I like to defend wolves and coyotes from yahoos that like to kill for the pleasure of killing.

[Beringia]

48. Just curious, how did you know I was interested in coyotes and wolves?

Has me flummoxed.

[George II]

22. Guess you didn't read her tweet - she's in the Capitol. Why so rude and insulting about her?

[Beringia]

46. Yet it is okay

to remark on how trump is overweight or how Mark Zuckerberg has a bad haircut?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

26. What the fuck is this shit right here.

[SlogginThroughIt]

43. I think this is where you apologize

[MineralMan]

9. What kind of reporter can't spell "Sergeant?"

Standards appear to have been lowered these days.

[Bonx]

12. Congress reporter for The Washington Post

[MineralMan]

20. Exactly. Weird.

I guess the copy editor is supposed to catch errors like that, so the reporter doesn't have to know how to spell common words. But, see, that used to matter at newspapers. A reporter who misspelled things wasn't likely to keep a job very long. I guess we don't care about that any more.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. Sergeant, Lieutenant, and Colonel

are tricky if you're not exposed to military or use the terms in writing that much if at all... Of course nowadays, things have spell-checkers and this was a tweet, so probably no copy editor, but...

[MineralMan]

25. Yeah, well, journalists are supposed to know words like those,

especially political reporters. Besides, my cell phone shows me the correct spelling of Sergeant if I try typing it the way she did. It also presents Sargent, because there was a famous guy with that as his first name.

A "Congressional reporter" would have encountered the term "Sergeant at Arms" before, I'm very sure. I'm just saying that journalists are supposed to be able to spell words correctly. It's part of, you know, the job.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. The excitement of a "scoop" in a tweet.

Guess we should be glad that the tweet didn't substitute single letters or numbers for words - U no what I mean?

[MineralMan]

33. LOL!

[stopdiggin]

35. spelling definitely de-emphasized

I think this actually was starting when I was in school (way back when). Now journalists? It would seem reasonable to expect better. Understand your disappointment (especially with a major outlet like WP), but I'm wondering if being a journalist means the same thing as it use to?

[MineralMan]

36. Does it mean the same. That depends on the journalist, I suppose.

For some, spelling is irrelevant, and spelling checkers will spot most errors. In fact, her iPhone would have shown her the correct spelling. Mine does. It's more a matter of not caring about such details. The problem is that such sloppiness leads to other kinds of sloppiness in reporting. That was always how people treated it, anyhow.

Now, at the Washington Post, she'll probably get some ribbing from other journalists there, for whom spelling does matter. Here on DU, I'm told that I'm nit picking. The trouble with not picking nits is that they grow up into adult lice and cause all sorts of problems. But, most people don't know what a nit is. So, the expression has little meaning, really, to them.

I don't like seeing standards slipping like that. It's not like Sergeant is a rare word. It's not at all, especially at places like Congress, where the Sergeant at Arms is a prominent character. Colonel and Lieutenant are also words in common usage that derive from French. Knowing their derivation helps you spell them correctly.

Spelling is one of the tools of a journalist, for whom words are the basis of their work. Not caring about the words one uses in reporting is the sign of a poor journalist. Truly.

[MineralMan]

38. I read the Washinton Post fairly frequently. It's quite rare to find a spelling,

punctuation, or grammar error in its articles. They still copy edit and proofread their content. They still care about the language. Other major newspapers also do that, as do most major magazines and book publishers.

So, it's not a rare thing to expect writers to check their own work carefully. It's expected at publications that care about such things. If a writer consistently makes such errors, that writer is going to have a hard time advancing at the publication, and might find him or herself out of a job if staff is cut.

It still matters to writers and reporters who are serious about what they do.

Clearly, though, there are some for whom it does not matter. More's the pity.

[JHB]

21. One who has only seen the rank in abbreviated form, and is more familiar with the version...

...that is usually followed by "Shriver"?

[MineralMan]

23. Perhaps. If I were her, though, I'd be very embarrassed.

I spent much of my adult life writing for major magazines. I would never turn in a story with even one misspelling. I would have been totally embarrassed if I had done so. Part of the business of being a professional writer is being able to use the English language correctly, or used to be, at least. I'm an old geezer, though, so what do I know about such things?

Let's try a test: Sargent. My cell phone showed me the correct spelling. Hmm...

I wonder how she'd spell Colonel? "Kernel," perhaps.

[JHB]

27. Oh, I'm not arguing with you...

...being someone in a related field.

However, sometimes my mind is inclined to take rhetorical questions literally, so when you asked "what kind of reporter..." a plausible, if embarrassing, scenario popped into my head.

[MineralMan]

29. It's OK. I filled her in on the correct spelling in a comment

to her tweet. Perhaps she'll get it right the next time. Of course, you can't edit tweets, so...

[Squinch]

37. "If I were she" is the grammatically correct way to say that.

[MineralMan]

39. Yes, but that conditional mood form and the use of that pronoun in it is falling out of use.

English changes all the time. These days, at most publications using data as a singular noun has become standard. That would have been shocking at one time, but usage has led to common acceptance of it as a singular noun. Now, some publications do not accept that, but they are becoming fewer and fewer.

Every major publication has a style sheet that details the usages accepted by that publication. If you work for multiple publications, as I used to, you have to learn the style sheet or suffer the wrath of copy editors.

The language is changing, but "sergeant" is still spelled that way universally.

[Squinch]

40. So it's OK when you drop "standards." Because reasons. Gotcha.

[theophilus]

28. Wow! Thanks for this. Now I know what the most important part

of this story is. I wasn't paying close enough attention. I was a little excited and distracted. Focus is back on. Thanks

[MineralMan]

32. It's a journalism thing. Spelling is important to journalists,

or should be, anyhow. She is a journalist, apparently. I let her know about the misspelling in a comment to her tweet.

[USALiberal]

41. What kind of person makes a big deal out of it? Nt

[MineralMan]

44. My kind of person.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

47. She has a coworker named Greg Sargent. I'm going with absent-minded mistake as the reason.

It might seem odd that spellcheck didn't flag it/change it to "sergeant," but it is probably the case that spellcheck had learned to accept "sargent" as the correct spelling, due to its frequent use.

[Leghorn21]

11. Hey, wouldn't it be funny if they're arrested and booked and then they hire Trey Gowdy to be

their lawyer - you know, the guy who held PRIVATE HEARINGS in the SCIF for his Benghazi investigations???

[2naSalit]

14. It sure would.

[2naSalit]

16. There will be consequences.

Well, there had better be.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Good news, Leghorn21. Thanks for the quick update.

On edit:

Never have told you your screen names always reminds me of former Mississippi Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, who sounds just like the cartoon Foghorn Leghorn, shown here on Senate Seersucker Suit Day:





Son W. shown reality checking his father's seersucker suit.

[Leghorn21]

42. Ha ha, "Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered fuh just such an emuhgency!"

My favorite Foghorn line!

(my handle comes from - what else?! - my late, great black/white kitty cat, whom I called many names, including this one!)

[cynatnite]

18. More developments...

Link to tweet

[Leghorn21]

19. Thanks, trying to keep up

Mercy

[superpatriotman]

31. What won't they do to protect Twitler?

Sure, it’s polite and PR-based now, but what happens when the REAL impeaching starts?

[triron]

34. It will get worse before it gets better. Maybe far worse.