"gritty" -- it isn't just for mill towns anymore.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:36 pm

c.2006 New York Times News Service@
PHILADELPHIA -- The men gathered in front of the BZ Ballaz Club barbershop in a gritty, mostly Hispanic section of north Philadelphia are listening intently ...

egable · **Joined:** Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:24 am **Posts:** 310

Anyone want to lay odds that the writer of that lede lives in a white-bread suburb somewhere and never even had the passing thought that "gritty" might be cliched, inaccurate or even offensive?

Docsdoctor · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:02 am

Don't you mean "A manicured, mostly-White neighborhood well outside the city"?

egable · **Joined:** Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:24 am **Posts:** 310

Why, yes, perhaps I do.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:22 am

A running joke here in ever-gentrifying New York is that every neighborhood is now "tony" to the tabloids.

E.g., tony Park Slope, tony Spanish Harlem, etc.

EMorse · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:53 pm

We have a constant battle at my paper against reporters' obsessive need to characterize neighborhoods and communities. Our copy chief has issued a fatwa against "close-knit," because it was being used to describe every neighborhood where anything happened, especially if the event was tragic or frightening. "Gritty" pops up, of course, as does "tony," and "tree-lined" is another fave of the reporters.

When I first moved to this area, before I joined my current paper, I came to believe that "Trendy Manayunk" was the actual name of one of the city's (then) recently gentrified neighborhoods, based on local news coverage.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:22 pm

NYT: February 26, 2006.

"I am Aleksandr Milinkevich," he recently assured a worker outside an auto-parts factory in Borisov, a gritty industrial city northeast of the capital, Minsk.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:24 pm

NYT: February 12, 2006

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: CONEY ISLAND; On a Gritty Shore, California Dreaming

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:39 pm

Yet Another Mop-Up Along a Gritty Shore
Published: February 26, 2006
... It certainly had a past life as a hotel back when the area was called Kreischerville, when the kill was not nearly so gritty a place.

----

A Police Veteran, a Rookie and Fate: All Three Crossed Paths
New York Times, United States - Feb 2, 2006
... Officer Toro preferred working the overnight shift at the 46th Precinct, 1.32 square miles of gritty South Bronx real estate that includes the Mount Hope and ...

----

There Goes the Neighborhood, the Machine District - New York Times
February 7, 2006,
Mr. Goodman, whose grandfather started selling second-hand metalworking machines on Centre Street in 1927, recalls a gritty world that buzzed with riggers, ...

----

** I guess I just never realized how much grit there is out there. **

tom · **Joined:** Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:33 am **Posts:** 13

Makes me wonder if the NYT's got a little too much Lovin' Spoonful in their iPods. Any word on overuse of "hotter than a match head"?

hound · **Posted:** Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:22 am

Quote:

Brad and Angelina, Tom and Katie, Nick and Jessica -- it seems people canâ€™t get enough of hearing about the gritty details of celebritiesâ€™ lives.

Fox story

fev · **Joined:** Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:04 pm **Posts:** 371

<<When I first moved to this area, before I joined my current paper, I came to believe that "Trendy Manayunk" was the actual name of one of the city's (then) recently gentrified neighborhoods, based on local news coverage.>>

Sort of like the days when "war-torn" was the biggest city in Lebanon?

WARTORN, Lebanon (AP) --

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:01 pm

tom wrote:

Makes me wonder if the NYT's got a little too much Lovin' Spoonful in their iPods. Any word on overuse of "hotter than a match head"?

Oh my, we've been there.

ndugan1 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:49 pm

McClatchy strategy is to stick to what it knows and likes
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA â€“ McClatchy Co. is eager to run the newspaper in sunny Charlotte, N.C., but won't set foot in cloudy Akron, Ohio. It's happy to publish in breeze-kissed Miami, but would rather not â€” thank you very much â€” put out a paper in gritty Philadelphia.

longwords · **Posted:** Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:44 pm

In 1970 I spent a day wandering around downtown Cleveland, which set my standard for "gritty." When I got back to the suburbs that evening, there were pieces of stuff -- dirt, grit and soot -- on my clothing and caught in my hair. It was a misty day, and the mist sometimes stung -- the acid caused a couple of runs in my stockings. I remember being astounded at how grubby the city was. Cleveland is much cleaner now, and Philadelphia doesn't come close to Cleveland's former grittiness.

Le Petomane · **Posted:** Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:53 am

tom wrote:

Makes me wonder if the NYT's got a little too much Lovin' Spoonful in their iPods. Any word on overuse of "hotter than a match head"?

I wish you hadn't asked:

Hot time, summer in the city. And one of our coolest small nonprofit cultural institutions, the Drawing Center in SoHo, is taking some heat for showing political art.

Lede in the NY Times on June 25, 2005.

No hits for "hotter than a match head." But there's always tomorrow.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:58 am

Le Petomane wrote:

tom wrote:

Makes me wonder if the NYT's got a little too much Lovin' Spoonful in their iPods. Any word on overuse of "hotter than a match head"?

I wish you hadn't asked:

Hot time, summer in the city. And one of our coolest small nonprofit cultural institutions, the Drawing Center in SoHo, is taking some heat for showing political art.

Lede in the NY Times on June 25, 2005.

Pop culture ledes are annoying enough. Ones that don't even get the reference right are even worse (it's "hot town").

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:17 pm

Matthew Grieco wrote:

Pop culture ledes are annoying enough. Ones that don't even get the reference right are even worse (it's "hot town").

Fortunately, most readers won't notice, given that the pop reference is about 40 years old.

Nessie3 · **Posted:** Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:36 am

ADKbrown wrote:

Matthew Grieco wrote:

Pop culture ledes are annoying enough. Ones that don't even get the reference right are even worse (it's "hot town").

Fortunately, most readers won't notice, given that the pop reference is about 40 years old.

Unless it's ressurrected as a car or jeans commercial.

Le Petomane · **Posted:** Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:06 am

Matthew Grieco wrote:

Le Petomane wrote:

tom wrote:

Makes me wonder if the NYT's got a little too much Lovin' Spoonful in their iPods. Any word on overuse of "hotter than a match head"?

I wish you hadn't asked:

Hot time, summer in the city. And one of our coolest small nonprofit cultural institutions, the Drawing Center in SoHo, is taking some heat for showing political art.

Lede in the NY Times on June 25, 2005.

Pop culture ledes are annoying enough. Ones that don't even get the reference right are even worse (it's "hot town").

In an uncharacteristic moment, I let that pass without comment. But I feel more my old self now.

I've gone back and searched for "hot time, summer in the city." Seems to be a common mondegreen.

Maybe it was coincidence that the music playing for callers holding on the St. Mary's County Metropolitan Commission's telephone line was "Hot Time, Summer in the City" just as the heat index ...
--The Washington Post

Hot Time, Summer in the City
--New York Times headline

HOT TIME, SUMMER IN THE CITY
--Boston Globe ALL CAPS headline

"Hot time, summer in the city. Back of my neck gettin' dirt [sic]and gritty." The old Lovin' Spoonful lyrics sum it up ...
--Toronto Star

Hot time! Summer in the city./ Back o' my neck's [sic] gettin' dirty and gritty/ ...
--Dallas Morning News (in a story about rock lyrics, of course)

... perfect for your average street corner, addresses the hot-time, summer-in-the-city syndrome.
--Los Angeles Times

Hot time, summer in the city . . . Catchy, eh? We made it up ourselves, back when the Entertainment department was using the name Lovin' Spoonful.
--The Columbus Dispatch

Total: 54 hits for the incorrect reference. The NY Times and Washington Post seem to be particularly fond of the error, with four hits for the Times and three for the Post.

Not bad for the newspaper business.

You can visit the Archive of Misheard Lyrics at http://www.kissthisguy.com/.

EMorse · **Posted:** Sun Apr 02, 2006 3:56 pm

And the NYT isn't done yet.

From today's Real Estate section:

A Gritty Area With Awesome Views

(As the story's about Paterson, though, they might have a point.)

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:51 pm

Meanwhile, in Durham, N.C., the AP, which is beside itself over its luck in finding a convenient paint-by-numbers display of stereotypes at work around Duke University, reports:

It's so easy to see the incident at the shabby university-owned house â€” just a mile from the iconic Gothic Duke Chapel â€” in terms of powerlessness and privilege, town and gown, black and white. Many on campus and in the streets of this gritty working-class vertex of the famed Research Triangle are framing it just that way.

magman · **Posted:** Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:36 am

Ladies and gentlemen, today I saw a reference to "gritty" and figured I had stumbled upon yet another example of what we've been talking about in this thread.

I was wrong.

larepublica · **Posted:** Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:35 am

EMorse wrote:

And the NYT isn't done yet.

(As the story's about Paterson, though, they might have a point.)

If I had to choose between spending the rest of my days in Paterson NJ or suicide, I would choose suicide. "Gritty" is one of the last adjectives I would use to describe the place, it is too complimentary.

ndugan1 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:08 am

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat street crime and terrorism.

Why don't we just replace "gritty" with "crime-ridden" and help the reporter stop beating around the bush here? Oh, that's right â€” that would be editorializing.

OnlySpeaksEnglish · **Posted:** Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:38 am

Quote:

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat street crime and terrorism.

To me a gritty street is one I don't want to drive down because it will ruin my paint job. So it's not just a euphemism, it's actually misleading.

Nessie3 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:19 am

OnlySpeaksEnglish wrote:

Quote:

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat street crime and terrorism.

To me a gritty street is one I don't want to drive down because it will ruin my paint job. So it's not just a euphemism, it's actually misleading.

You might be surprised what being on this street could do to your paint job.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:35 pm

Quote:

Tsunami sweeps away entire towns on Chilean coast
In the wake of the earthquake, waves pillory Chilean villages
By MICHAEL WARREN and ROBERTO CANDIA, Associated Press
Monday, Mar 1, 2010 19:17 EST

When the shaking stopped, Marioli Gatica and her extended family huddled in a circle on the floor of their seaside wooden home in this gritty port town, listening to the radio by a lantern's light.

(emphasis added)

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Thu Jul 01, 2010 5:22 pm

Quote:

Economies in Latin America Race Ahead

LIMA, Peru — While the United States and Europe fret over huge deficits and threats to a fragile recovery, this region has a surprise in store. Latin America, beset in the past by debt defaults, currency devaluations and the need for bailouts from rich countries, is experiencing robust economic growth that is the envy of its northern counterparts.
[...]

“We’re witnessing what are probably the best economic conditions in Peru in my lifetime,” said Mario Zamora, 70, who owns six pharmacies in Los Olivos, a bustling working-class district of northern Lima where thousands of poor migrants from Peru’s highlands have settled.

Vibrancy mixes with grit around his pharmacies. A Domino’s Pizza vies for customers with Peruvian-Chinese restaurants called chifas. Motorcycle taxis deliver passengers to nightclubs. Competition, in the form of a newly arrived Chilean pharmacy chain, looms around the corner from his main store. [...]

(emphasis added)

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:24 pm

Am I just idealizing, or was there a time in the not-too-distant past when working-class reporters lived in the neighborhoods their papers covered?

Seems to me that any paper -- especially a small-town one -- would benefit hugely from hiring and training townies who are interested in local news rather than spending the same money to pay journalism grads and mediocre carpet-baggers to get their news. I promise you, that'd end the prejudice and pretense of all those parachute-in stories about "gritty" towns.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Jul 09, 2010 10:25 pm

Heartodixie wrote:

Am I just idealizing, or was there a time in the not-too-distant past when working-class reporters lived in the neighborhoods their papers covered?

It's been quite a while.

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:18 pm

But the New York Times really is down with us po folks:

Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages are the Rich

Quote:

"No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars. The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.

Plenty more presumptions and editorial observations where that came from.

SeaRaven · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:09 am

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... ls/?page=1

Quote:

... Four of the children are black or Hispanic and live in gritty neighborhoods, while the one white child lives in a leafy suburb.

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:38 pm

"Gritty" = neighborhood a reporter drove through once to get "color" to add to a story he or she didn't understand.

larepublica · **Posted:** Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:43 am

Our favorite bon mot is back, and this time AP is the culprit. They even got "humble" in there too!

Quote:

The unidentified woman lived in an apartment in a gritty part of this humble river city. Several neighbors on Wednesday recalled her as an attentive mother who balanced care of her children with an outside job. They were shocked by the news.

J Kaufman · **Posted:** Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:13 pm

Quote:

UNION BEACH, N.J. (AP) — In the days after Superstorm Sandy wrecked this gritty blue-collar enclave on the New Jersey shore, creating iconic scenes of devastation and loss, the artificial Christmas tree was just an inconspicuous part of tons of rubble, the detritus of people's lives in a town ripped open for all to see.

[AP via News-Times, Danbury, Conn.]

Testy Copy Editors

"gritty" -- it isn't just for mill towns anymore.

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