Flashes of Panic

This bit was in a press release today:

…New York’s finest track and running scribes.

Do the purveyors of purple prose have a reflex which inserts the word “finest” after any use of the possessive “New York’s”?

If they’re really making a distinction (between the finest track and running scribes, and cheap hacks like myself, I assume,) who’s making it? And what makes one a “fine” track writer? Circulation numbers? Membership in TAFWA? The ability to tell colorful stories about how you got to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics?

This is the danger of cliché: it becomes textual noise that distracts from the actual message.

Now Playing: Caroline from Bloodletting by Concrete Blonde