I decided to take the time to describe two more examples of what I consider to be very lazy and misguided use of language. A couple years ago I uploaded a post of a similar vein regarding a cbc.ca story I'd read. This time around, the examples happen to relate to NHL and NHL playoff reporting/commentary.
In what I can only attribute to a misguided and inane attempt to be (tragically) "hip", I've noticed several NHL commentators in both television and radio refer to the city of Vancouver as "Van", as in "the Kings next take on the Canucks in Van". Is it simply a matter of too many syllables, is three too much? Do they then refer to Winnipeg as "Win", Buffalo as "Buff", Montreal as "Mon", Ottawa as "Ott", Toronto as "Tor", Washington DC as "Wash", Winnipeg as "Win", Edmonton as "Ed", Anaheim as "An", and Los Angeles as "Los"? If that's the case then I wonder how they would bastardize Philadelphia with five syllables (apologies if I've left any surfeit-syllable cities out).
I don't want to single anyone out (though I will) because I've heard several reporters (both from Vancouver and not) abbreviate Vancouver in this fashion, but the most recent reporter (and the one that finally tipped the bucket, so to speak, and provided the motivation for this post) was James Duthie on TSN, on a live national broadcast of the NHL playoffs. Say it ain't so!
The last example for this post is regarding a link on CNN.com, titled "Brodeur blanks Cats, sets record", linking to this story. Now, abbreviating team names ('Nucks', 'Wings', 'Sens', "Hawks' for example) is nothing new, but this is just going too far. Brodeur plays for the New Jersey Devils, who are currently in a series versus the Florida Panthers, not the Florida Cats.
Update (25APR2012): Ugh. Now cbcsports is calling the Florida Panthers, "Cats".
