Dear Editor,

I never found out what Mr. Lightbourn's monkey did that caused his death except that he was "following fashion".  But I understand the message in the old saying since we Bahamians so like to follow fashion, sometimes making us look ridiculous.

As soon as somebody comes up with something we think is cute or cool (no matter how silly it is) we all get on the band wagon. The latest silly rage in our speech now is "would have", which everybody is using in place of the simple past tense.

You hear it everywhere, in the House of Assembly, in the Senate, even teachers in the TV news: people saying things like "As I would have said this morning", when they really mean "As I said this morning"; or "The Duke would have walked" when they mean "The Duke walked".
There's another fashion that has caught on with TV news reporters.  It's the annoying habit of trying to jazz up the news with gratuitous comments like: "You can imagine what the response was to that" or "You may have thought that ... ".

Why can't they just read the news?  Even though ZNS is running clips about what a public service broadcaster is supposed to be, its reporters are still trying to act like the news entertainers on CNN.

But ZNS took the cake the other night with its CNN imitation.  It reported on the tragic collapse and death of a young man during a basketball game. And they did a "re-enactment"!  Not only was that unnecessary, it was in very bad taste.  Are we now in for more tasteless "re-enactments" in the news?

One last thing. Has anyone noticed how our lawyers are acting just like the lawyers on American TV?  They actually argue their cases on camera in the evening news.  Some even carry on in high profile cases (Anna Nicole) as if they were publicity spokesmen for their client.
So you see why "follow fashion kill Mr. Lightbourn monkey"?

Yours, etc.,
CHIMP

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