I was tagged by Zenuria  to do this little exercise. Here is the idea:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Sorry for the boring selection of reading material closest to me right now.  I’m in my study.  Next to me are computer manuals, a couple of  dictionaries, an atlas, and a 2007 alumni directory from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, my alma mater.   I passed on those.  I didn’t come up with anything much more exciting close at hand, but I will read to you nonetheless from the well-worn and oft used text of Questions of Rhetoric and Usage, Second Edition.

Whenever the writer’s energy dissipates, the worn-out phrase or trite expression perches, ready to take over.  Stories in one week’s newspapers overworked the word hailed in these ways: “Officials hailed the news”; “Stockmen last hailed the report”; and “The approach of spring was hailed.”  Other journalistic favorites are “gutted by fire”; “guarded optimism”; ”tinder-dry woodlands”;  “flatly denied”;  “racially troubled”; and “limped into port.” 

Okay, that’s three sentences, but I’m going to finish the paragraph.  Newspapermen, working against the deadlines, have perhaps more excuse than college students for using trite phrases.  

Obviously, the writer of this text, published in 1974, was not a modern-day college student who is often trying to juggle not only a full academic load but relationships, family, and a job as well!

Well, hail, I should read this book all the way through sometime, which I didn’t when I was in college!