I’ve never really understood why Countdown with Keith Olbermann covers celebrity news. I think it cheapens what is an otherwise excellent news show. In fact, I think it’s the best news show on cable. Olbermann has made a big deal over the last few days about Britney Spears’s manager saying Britney was “just done” at the end of a New Year’s Eve party. He has emphasized that phrase in at least two successive broadcasts. He and regular contributing “comedian” Paul F. Tompkins made a big deal about that phrase used in conjunction with “so we took her out” equating to mob hit lingo. I had to watch that segment twice to even take a stab at what the disconnect is. The statement from Britney’s manager parses as follows to me: She was exhausted and cranky, so we left.

Is this some sort of northeastern linguistic blindspot? Are you not familiar with the phrase “just done” up there? If so, knowing where Britney and many of her people are from, wouldn’t it make sense to check and make sure there wasn’t some regional slang at work rather than just blowing it up into something bizaare?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Media, blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.