Correct. Coherent. Freshman Comp.

Re “Look. Listen. Over There.” editorial, Nov. 10:

I was amused and entertained by your editorial on TV Quik-Speak, which was at once timely and concise, correctly pointing out a penchant by TV commentators to employ time-saving language in light of our current cultural tendency to exhibit short attention spans, necessitating the transfer of information in bursts and sound bites.

On the other hand, I have noticed for a few years now an equally annoying and grammatically questionable trend among journalists with the Los Angeles Times, “one of the world’s great newspapers,” and other popular print media to scribe meandering and excruciatingly long sentences -- there is also a tendency to insert related phrases or sentences within many sentences, set off by dashes -- containing multiple subjects that could more clearly be presented in separate sentences, resulting in a single sentence often consuming an entire paragraph.

Our media, whether electronic or print, have a responsibility to exemplify good language skills. Thank you for pointing this out, but you told only half the story. Somewhere there is reasonable middle ground. Clear. Concise. Correct. Coherent. Complete. Freshman Composition.

Joseph S. Shull

Simi Valley