Wearing it out.

It's horrific, don't you think, the way local TV news has hyped its use of extreme adjectives and adverbs.

If it's sad, it must be tragic. If it's surprising, it must be stunning. If it's crime, it's heinous. Fatal? Deadly.

What do you think would happen if some TV news director ordered the deletion of all hype words, and discovered his ratings didn't fall a single decimal point?

He'd be devastated, of course.