Soon-To-Be-Fired Newspaper Editor Puts A Big Old "Fuck" On Page 3C

You may want to avert your delicate sensibilities from today's Greenville (S.C.) News, because they accidentally printed a naughty not-for-old-people-who-still-subscribe-to-newspapers word in today's story about the SEC Title Game. It's easy to miss, subtly placed in the flow of the text, but look very closely at the third paragraph. "Fuck" is the third graf.

How on earth does this happen? Either someone near the end of the copy flow snuck it in, or multiple people saw it and missed it completely. And now it's on doorsteps all over Upstate. Paul Newberry's maybe regretting the AP's decision to emphasize bylines, and about 20 out-of-work copy editors just sent their CV over to the News.

The real crime here isn't the swear, because "fuck" is probably an accurate description of how Georgia is feeling going up against LSU. No, it's the pernicious creep of short, single-clause paragraphs that have infected lazy sportswriting for years.

[ Twitter, via JimRomenesko.com]