Over at the Gazette, yet another editorial goes wrong.
While trying to praise the work of retiring Rock County Administrator Craig Knutson, the Gazette headlines with Our Views: Rock County’s Craig Knutson deserves salute for solid reign (subscription req’d). (The editorialist uses reign once again, in the body of the editorial.)
The use of reign is most likely a superlative gone bad: in a rush to praise Knutson, that praise includes an imperious description of his tenure, as though he were a king….
I think it’s something more, really, than just a misused word ignorantly assumed to be one of praise. It’s an obsequiousness to anyone in authority, something ones sees from the Gazette’s editorial board over and over.