Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 August 16

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August 16

Broken news

The expression "breaking news" can take on a few tense-related forms, e.g. :

• The news broke yesterday.
• CNN broke the news.
• That news has already broken.

We can say "That news has already been broken by CNN", but not simply "That news has already been broken". When an agent is not specified, we revert to "That news has already been broken". Sometimes news is a subject of "break", sometimes an object. Are there any similar examples?

Also, I've never heard about "broken news", probably because that term is inherently negative and denotes an absence of quality or competence, which is not what breaking in this context is all about. In a sense, Wikipedia is all about broken news, since we rely on sources that have already been published. Is there some expression that could usefully be used instead of "broken news"?

And why was news ever said to "break" in the first place? Is it related to "break open" = reveal? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Here's a writeup from 9 years ago,[1] which suggests that 9/11/01 was the source of this "breaking" thing, which was valid then and has become way overdone. I think it was Craig Kilborn who made the joke (or repeated it from elsewhere), "When news breaks, we fix it!" The term in the 1960s was "news bulletin" or "news flash". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:23, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

No, it was way earlier than that. Those of us who lived in Los Angeles in 1994 remember it being applied to the "low-speed chase" of O. J. Simpson in his white Ford Bronco, and thereafter to a whole mini-fad of car chases followed by helicopters on local TV news. The term itself was by no means new, and there had been a time when "breaking news" would occasionally be something of interest, but for at least a couple years after that incident it almost always meant car chases. --Trovatore (talk) 22:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

The OED Online shows examples of the term "breaking news" being used in 1877 and in 1940, meaning news "that is currently occurring or developing or has very recently taken place". It connects it to the expression "late-breaking news", referring to a news story that "becomes public or breaks... close to or after the print or broadcast deadline for a newspaper, newscast, etc." The earliest example cited for this is from 1925, and for the relevant sense of "break", from 1934. They group this sense of "break" together with the sense "to issue forth, come forth suddenly into notice, come as a surprise", for which examples from 1711 to 1884 are cited.

It makes sense that 9/11 explains the recent growth in usage of the expression, but it is older. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 04:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

In the transitive sense of informing the recipient of something they are not yet aware of, in which "the news" is the object, the use is much older. 1911: "she broke the news to him of his son's marriage"; 1913: "He gently broke the news to her"; also 1913: "I shall not soon forget the way in which Mr. Cornell broke the news to me". I associate the popularization of breaking news with its use as a chyron by CNN. Possibly, this use was meant as a telegram-style shortening of "We, CNN, are breaking the news to you, our viewers, that ...", implying, "CNN is the first news channel to cover this item".  --Lambiam 09:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, this BrE speaker finds nothing wrong with "That news has already been broken", although the appropriate circumstances for saying it seem unlikely to occur frequently. "Broken" in this sense probably derives from the action of "breaking out/free", so it is the metaphorical constraints (time or possibly censorship) on the news that have been broken, not the news itself which is somehow "damaged." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.112 (talk) 11:49, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed; a quick Google for "break the news" (which I assume is an associated sense) finds it used in The Paper Mill and Wood Pulp News (1897). Alansplodge (talk) 13:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This AmE speaker also finds nothing wrong with "That news has already been broken" and agrees with your analysis. --Khajidha (talk) 16:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• The sense of "broken" as in "has been revealed" or something similar is also present in phrases like "Morning Has Broken" and "the break of day". See several of the definitions here under the "intransitive verb" sense, specifically 1a, 1e, 1f, and 1i. --Jayron32 15:51, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks, all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Triplecross

In the Transformers cartoon episode "Money is Everything", Dirk Manus is trying to doublecross the Quintessons, only to find they doublecrossed him back. He exclaims "A triplecross!"

Now is this word in actual use, or did the writers of the episode just invent it? JIP | Talk 03:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

It definitely exists, but more usually spelled with a space or hyphen. AnonMoos (talk) 04:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You haven't visited Triple Cross? It's missing the three-member, tag-team version of motocross I just invented. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The OED Online defines the phrase "triple cross" as "the act of betraying one party in a transaction by pretending to betray the other, or of betraying a person who has betrayed another". Examples of "triple cross" from 1971 (from a novel) and 1978 (from a newspaper) are quoted, but there is also an example of "triple-crossing" from the 1922 novel Babbitt, where one character describes such a betrayal by saying "It's triple-crossing." --184.144.99.72 (talk) 07:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The jump from double to triple is an obvious one to make, so it is possible that several writers have independently invented it, unaware of prior use. Compare triple bind ^[2][3][4] and quadruple agent.^[5][6][7] --Lambiam 10:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)