Tony Kronheiser :: essays research papers

Tony KronheiserTony Kornheiser is the self-admitted opinionated, sarcastic sports and stylecolumnist for The Washington Post. Kornheisers purpose is not to report to thereader an object glass account of a sporting event, but rather to add inclination totopics that range in topic from the Washington Redskins ("Its Now an Off-RoadVehicle," November 5, 1996) to his lunch-time experience the other mean solar day ("In aReal Fix," November 3, 1996). Kornheisers diction, figurative language, andtone make his columns what they are. Often, diction, figurative language, andtone are not common in the journalistic world, but Kornheisers humor finds roomfor them.Tony Kornheisers sarcasm is almost entirely related to his diction. Hecontains the skills to take something as insignificant as a restaurant changingon him minutely and reports about it so that the common man can relate. Heis The Washington Posts Jerry Seinfeld. He blends the slang of the street manwith the poetic ver bs and fluid 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 whohave watched the Twilight Zone before can relate this account as a referenceto the famous TV show, so Kornheisers slang was effective in grabbing thereader, 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 colloquial manner of speaking 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 phrase used by WashingtonRedskins fans when the team won the Superbowl in 1991). Kornheiser assumes thatthe reader is familiar with him, and that is clear i n his informal diction thatis used with the reader. It is almost to the point of a friendship, as though acoworker was letting off his steam at work during a lunch break.Kornheisers figurative speech also add to his style sooner 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 look 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