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Thursday, February 09, 2006
Seares: 'Treated like animals'
By Pachico a. seares
News Sense
Similes and metaphors are useful devices. Theodore Bernstein notes that they help the writer make his point effectively and his prose less stodgy.
One didn't expect similes in the report of the task force that investigated the Feb. 4 “Wowowee” stampede.
What one usually sees from a government report is bureaucratese, filled with jargon and roundabout phrases.
You find little of that in the task force report. And, surprise, you read two similes.
The report speaks of the crowd "being treated like animals." It also likens offering a few tickets to so many people to "throwing a small piece of meat to a pack of wolves."
The task force's point is made clear and indeed lifts the prose "from the stodgy level of a mere succession of words."
Simplistic
But a simile can be simplistic and cruel. It can accuse and make it sound like fact and conclude without enough basis.
“Wowowee's” negligence "bordered on the criminal." Yet that lapse did not prove they treated people like animals.
Not anticipating what few tickets could do to thousands of fans rushing to get in was being negligent, maybe dumb. But it was not like taunting wolves with meager meat.
Being grossly negligent is not equivalent to being super mean.
Outrage
No wonder ABS-CBN's Eugenio Lopez III was outraged.
But then, so is the public, which still has to overcome its own outrage over the tragedy.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 9, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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