1341 Reading the sports page

Yesterday in writing class, Naomi who teaches creative writing to children, mentioned an odd factoid about newspapers--the reading level of the sports page is higher than the front page or op ed! "It's the similes and metaphors," she said. "They require a higher level of comprehension." Could it be? So this morning at the coffee shop I glanced at the sports page of the USAToday, just for fun.

Here's a statement from the Money page:

"Sprint and Nextel have a game plan for the future, and it's not what you might think. The play book goes like this. . ." Couple of sports idioms--financial pages do a lot of that. Almost exclusively written by men who think their audience is male.

Now here's the sports page:

"Pittsnogle went from reserve center to cult hero to verb in the space of a few weeks. Physically, he's 6-11. Metaphorically, he stands much taller." This article uses these colorful and alliterative phrases: "a wisker short"; "unlikely underdog"; put him on a pedestal"; "play in the paint"; "quick-draw jumper." Full Pittsnogle story here.

Not only was the sports writing better paced with more difficult vocabulary and idioms, but it actually used the words VERB and METAPHORICALLY. I would have written more, but someone joined me at the table, so it was time to chat.

Made a believer out of me.