In a column in the Chicago Tribune today - first sentence:

quote:

Due to the failure of the justice system in the recent killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, we have witnessed an outpouring across this nation by mostly young people, but people of all ages and background.

An "outpouring" of what? I kept rereading to see if I had missed it.

Then, is it mostly young people or people of all ages?

I agree, Kalleh, the writing seems imprecise. It would not have impeded the author's flow to include of what the outpouring consists (emotions? Response? Emotionsl response?). Likewise, I think I understand the author to say that the majority responding consisted of young people, though a significant minority comprised people of all ages & backgrounds-- but better phrasing eould have made this clear.

Yes, I agree that in the end I am pretty sure I understand what the author is saying. However, it's ambiguous, I think, and yet it was published widely in a national newspaper.

The sentence is a model of poor and ambiguous diction. It might be better expressed as follows:

quote:

The justice system's bungling in the face of the recent killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner has predicated across this nation an emotional outpouring from not only the young, but from people of all ages and backgrounds.

BTW, it is worth considering whether the sentence suggested above could reasonably omit "in the face". I think not, for then it might suffer from the same kind of implication that lingers in the original - to wit, that the justice system is [somehow] involved in the recent killings (and failing)! Egad.

I heard, over the past few days, several commercials in which the spokespeople said, "You can visibly see...." or else "You can physically feel..." Is there any other way to see or feel except visibly or physically?

quote:

You can visibly see ...

This is an odd one, Proofreader, and you're right: it's fairly common. I suspect it uses (utilizes?) "see" in the sense of "understand" (per, for example, "I see what you mean"), and so the construction is aimed at the notion of "conferring visible confirmation of ...." But an ugly construction, just the same.

Yes, I think that's it, WeeWilly. The same goes for "feel." You can physically feel something or you can "feel" blue.