MSNBC's Wonder Boy Dan Abrams Knows When To Quit

abalk — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:20:43 EDT

"MSNBC said today that [general manager] Dan Abrams, who has been the host of a 9 p.m. news hour called 'Live with Dan Abrams' temporarily since July, will stay in the job permanently, leaving behind the managerial position he had occupied for a little over a year." With MSNBC's ratings nipping at CNN's heels, this can only be good for Abrams: If ratings stay high, he can take all the credit, and if they start to go down, hey, he can just blame the new guy. Also notable: Dan Abrams, though he unfortunately refers to his program as "snarky," has "no interest in doing Keith Olbermann." Boy, is he not alone in that.

MSNBC's Abrams to Be Anchor, Not Manager [NYT]

"Enough Already" With The Snarky, Says 'Times'

Choire — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:52:52 EDT

Once a week, Ahead of the Times, everyone's favorite in-house New York Times newsletter, runs a regular column called After Deadline, in which errors are kindly mocked, word usage is criticized, display copy praised and the like. This week's is the choicest ever, most notably because Standards Editor Craig Whitney felt compelled to pitch in to decry repeated uses of "snarky"—six in the last month! Yuck. And the offending sections are exactly the ones you'd suspect.

Give It a Rest
Craig Whitney notes our infatuation with the word "snarky," which seems to be growing; he finds six examples just in the last month or so.

Avenue Q, a snarky comic ode to the satisfactions of quasi-loserdom in your 20s. (Arts & Leisure, April 8)

Still, snarky sentences like those notwithstanding, it is hard to get a pulse going for this. (House & Home, March 29)

"We're not a snarky, mean, nasty brand." (all right, a quote, from Key, March 18)

The snarky, gossipy, anxious employees of the agency compose the collective narrator. (Book Review, also March 18)

Would today's critics have savaged Suetonius for writing snarky "pathography"? (again Book Review, again March 18)

Its famously snarky voice can appeal to enough readers to be profitable. (Sunday Styles, March 13)

The word is colloquial, and its primary meaning is "irritable, irascible." The currently faddish meaning of "irreverent, snide" can easily be conveyed by one of those words or something similar, without resorting to colloquialism or sounding as though we're trying too hard to be hip.

"Sorry to sound snarky," Craig says, "but enough already."

Gawker: snarky

MSNBC's Wonder Boy Dan Abrams Knows When To Quit

"Enough Already" With The Snarky, Says 'Times'