… that only in sports writing are mixed metaphors considered okay. I mean, here’s the first paragraph of a New York Times piece about the latest Miami thing and about how nobody involved will be punished very severely because the people running the games are greedy amoral shits, etc.
As college sports officials confront yet another cheating scandal — this one involving Miami, the latest in a conga line of blue-chip programs that have recently stumbled into the crosshairs of N.C.A.A. investigators — speculation over the extent of the fallout intensified Wednesday.
A conga line made up of blue chips stumbles into crosshairs which emit fallout.
SOS doesn’t find this a very lucid sentence. Good writing is supposed to clarify, not to muddy. But never mind.
August 18th, 2011 at 7:34AM
“stumbled into the crosshairs of N.C.A.A. investigators”
Crosshairs. Isn’t that a violent image? Here The Gray Lady spent most of the winter lecturing us about violent metaphors, and now her own reporters are pulverizing the rules for civility demanded just a few months ago.