Tony Kronheiser :: essays research papers

Tony KronheiserTony Kornheiser is the self-admitted opinionated, corrosive sports and stylecolumnist for The Washington Post. Kornheisers purpose is not to report to the ref an objective account of a sporting event, but rather to convey humor totopics that range in topic from the Washington Redskins ("Its Now an Off-RoadVehicle," November 5, 1996) to his lunch-time make love the early(a) day ("In aReal Fix," November 3, 1996). Kornheisers diction, metaphorical language, and face make his columns what they are. Often, diction, figurative language, andtone are not vulgar in the journalistic world, but Kornheisers humor finds roomfor them.Tony Kornheisers sarcasm is near all related to his diction. Hecontains the skills to take something as insignificant as a restaurant changingon him unexpectedly and reports about it so that the common man can relate. Heis The Washington Posts Jerry Seinfeld. He blends the slang of the channel manwith the poetic verbs and flui d adjectives of an English teacher. For example,in "In A Real Fixe," Kornheiser says, "George was beginning to suspect that wehad entered (doo-doo, doo-doo). . . The Nouvelle Dining Zone." Most people who live with watched the Twilight Zone before can relate this statement as a referenceto the famous TV show, so Kornheisers slang was impressive in grabbing the reader, even if a large majority of them have no idea what the word "nouvelle"means. Kornheiser uses an array of such adjectives throughout his pieces but hedoes not pretend to be above his readers. He fills his work with conversational savoir-faire such as his references in "Its Now an Off-Road Vehicle" to otherWashington Post columnists such as Michael Wilbon, and to his "RedskinsBandwagon." (The Redskins Bandwagon was a common express used by WashingtonRedskins fans when the team won the Superbowl in 1991). Kornheiser assumes thatthe reader is familiar with him, and that is clear in his informal diction thatis used with the reader. It is almost to the point of a friendship, as though acoworker was letting dark his steam at work during a lunch break.Kornheisers figurative speech in addition institute to his style quite well. Theblend of diction and figurative speech is clear as Kornheiser uses several localallusions in his metaphors and similes that add to his "common man" image. Forexample, in "In a Real Fixe," Kornheiser compares the face of a hostess face toone of a nurse at St. Elizabeths, a local mental hospital. In that samearticle he also compares his whole experience to "going down into the Metro and