Excuse Me? Say What?
From today’s Arab Times:
Drunkard creates nuisance: Police have arrested a Kuwaiti man for consuming alcohol and spreading panic in Adan Hospital, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
The well-built drunkard, who was visiting his brother in the hospital, caused nuisance and insulted policemen who rushed to the place, say sources.
It was found that the drunkard is wanted by law for insulting an employee on duty.
Don’t you find this write-up a bit strange?
OK, what does being “well-built” have to do with anything??? This is a news story!
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hehehehe I think they wanted to say a huge scary man but in a nice way!
Ansam, would a reporter ever say “well built” about a woman? I think commenting in a news article about a person’s build is outside the boundaries. If he was fighting, it could be pertinent to say he was “strongly built” or “heavily muscled” or even “intimidating” but “well built” implies an appreciation of someone’s body that I find inappropriate in a crime column, but oh well, I’m just being picky.
I think the term “well-built” is odd, but I could see a US paper describing someone as 6′ 5″ and 220lbs., for example, which would communicate the same message: that this man, when drunk, would be intimidating and hard to stop.
I also take issue with “drunkard”. My understanding of “drunkard” is that it refers to a person who is habitually drunk. The Arab Times doesn’t know that this man is often drunk – it just knows that he was drunk in this particular instance. Hence it is substituting a moral judgment for factual description. I suspect that this is more the product of the editors’ command of English, but still: it prejudices the reader.
It took a while to register what the phrase built-in drunkard means. First, being a drunkard is in his body; second, that his body is well built. The writer could have said the age of the man than describing what his body looks like. Reading the kuwait newspaper can give me a headache sometimes. =P
But it doesn’t say, “built in drunkard” Gemini, it says “well built drunkard.” On the other hand, you could be right, it could be meant to say that meaning “habitual” or something.
Little Diamond, I am ashamed, I have gotten so used to the pejorative terms that I didn’t even see it. People are labled all the time! Well-built caught my eye because it would be grounds for a lawsuit, in other countries.
You are taking this phrase “Well Built ” out of context , why take some one to court for writing that ,
If the newspaper wrote “Well Hung” or “Well endowed ” maybe there is a cause for suing the newspaper by the Ministry of information for lewd writing , However it would make the accused feel like he is “Man of The Year “.
case closed
I am very confused by this! Why won’t they hire a native English speaker to edit this stuff? Maybe no one will take the job because look at how well we all speak English, and how poor we understand what the author is trying to convey. Maybe a native English speaker would go insane sorting through this. Isn’t it entertaining though?
Daggero! Daggero! You know better! That is lousy journalism! You don’t call someone “well-built.” You also don’t call someone a drunkard, as Little Diamond points out, unless you quote a policeman or a doctor saying something like “this (well-built) drunkard kept swinging his fists!” That’s the ONLY time you can say something like that.
Man of the Year . . . LLLOOOLLLLL! It’s still BAD writing. 🙂
Mimfoy – Hire a native English speaker and deprive us of all the hilarity of reading the Kuwait Times?? No, Mimfoy! Part of the fun is trying to figure out what they are trying to say – or, in the case sometimes, what they are trying to tell us without getting the newspaper shut down. What they are trying to hint, what direction they are trying to point us in! Honestly, we get so much entertainment from the Arab Times and Kuwait Times – as I hear you do, too!