Who the %#@^* is Vols?
Looking in Google news for updates on the courthouse shooting this morning near my office, I spotted this story from a Knoxville TV station website. The headline: "Courtroom Shooting in Atlanta, Vols Asleep Nearby"
Of course, I'm thinking who the fuck is this "Vols" character and what was s/he doing sleeping in the courtroom? I glance around the page (spotting the headline link, "Child Preditors (sic) Turn to Cell Phones") before noticing that the website is for "Voluneer TV" and the "Vols" along with their fans are in town for the SEC tournament. Apparently, they are staying in the Marriott Marquis, which is not really that close to the courthouse, as the article makes clear. At least, it's not as close as I am, but I don't see any newspaper articles titled "Courtroom Shooting in Atlanta, Political Scientists Working Nearby" concerned with my safety.
posted by Mr. Arkadin at 12:24 PM
3 Comments:
Second test comment
I'm a "Vol". ;) It's safe to call a graduate of the University of Tennessee a "Vol" and any other avid fan of UT sports the same. And it's "Volunteer TV", not "Voluneer TV" [sic]. ;) It's a CBS affiliate TV station in Knoxville.
Your search and your subsequent offense is somewhat similar to walking in on a conversation and asking the participants "What the #$^% is a 'cropper'!?" Little did you know you stumbled upon a group of scrapbook enthusiasts.
If you stumble upon local news citation during a Google search, don't be surprised that the vernacular maybe unfamiliar to you and the news is couched in terms that make no sense to an outsider randomly encountering the story.
Ask someone from Knoxville where "spaghetti junction" is and your likely to get the same response.
Your post is humorous nonetheless and I'm only ribbing you. Scott Strader is my brother-in-law whom you met last night at the Prince of Wales. He pointed to me to your site. Look forward to meeting you and other fellow bloggers in the future.
Cheers,
Mason W. Foley
Well, the "offense" I took wasn't so much in the existence of unfamiliar vernacular (everybody's got that) as in the dramatic-sounding concern for what turned out to be a tenuous local connection to a situation making national news. Of course, a couple of days later I was remarking with friends on the omnipresence of this tendency. All the cities I've lived in and major papers I've read (with the possible exception of the NYT) go to ridiculous lengths to find some local angle to any story, no matter how significant. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is no exception.
The fact that it's done everywhere doesn't make it any less curious and amusing. Perhaps people do find it easier to relate to stories through local connections, but I find the assumption a bit insulting.
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