RIP Jimmy Maddock

Submitted by wresler120 on

Former Michigan Quarterback Jimmy Maddock passed away today.

Maddock is survived by his wife of almost 50 years, Martha Ryan and seven children; Michael, Patricia (Page); Matthew, Elizabeth (Fisher), Anne (McGuire); Andrew and Martha ( Zipkin); and 18 grandchildren. Maddock’s grandson, Matthew, is a sophomore at the University of Michigan.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Maddock family. Maddock had a great career at Michigan!!


http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/former-michigan-quarterback-jimmy-maddock-dies-at-age-76/

joeyb

July 20th, 2011 at 6:20 PM ^

"Maddock is survived by his wife of almost 50 years, Martha Ryan and seven children; Michael, Patricia (Page); Matthew, Elizabeth (Fisher), Anne (McGuire); Andrew and Martha ( Zipkin); and 18 grandchildren."

I wasn't going to say anything, but this "sentence" bothered me so much that I came back in here after I closed the tab to post this. How did this get by an editor? It took me 2 minutes to figure out what he was trying to say.

IncognitoWolverino

July 20th, 2011 at 9:17 PM ^

As someone who has done obits for newspapers, this looks correct to me. If the names in parentheses are throwing you, it's common practice to list the current last names of women who have changed them because of marriage. It's also understood that semi-colons are used when breaking up lists that aren't just straight lists of objects (for example, a grocery list of eggs, bacon and milk would not need semicolons, but a list naming people and their hometowns would use semi-colons, as in Eric, from Ann Arbor; David, from Detroit; Denard, from Heaven and Steve, from Royal Oak).

The only thing I might take issue with is the final semi colon before "And 18 grandchildren." AP style dictates no comma use before an "and" when making a list (such is listed earlier in the sentence with "Denard, from Heaven and Steve, from Royal Oak"). It's been a little bit since I've been a journalist, but I'm not sure if it is needed.

Finally, these sorts of lists are usually taken verbatim from something sent in by the family (lightly edited for general accuracy, but mostly left unchanged).

joeyb

July 20th, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^

It's acceptable to use semicolons, but he mixes semicolons and commas for the list, which implies that commas are being used to do something other than delimit items in the list. I couldn't tell if he was listing Michael and Patricia or Patricia (Page) Michael until I read further on to see that he didn't use consistent formatting. He uses a semicolon instead of a colon to signify the start of the list, which implies that "seven children" is part of the list. He missed the comma after the wife's name, which made me question whether that was his wife or another person. If you remove the wife's name and the list, the sentence essentially reads "He is survived by his wife and seven children and 18 grandchildren."

maizenblueCW2

July 20th, 2011 at 7:24 PM ^

it's a fairly common phrase in obituaries, "is survived by" just means that he was married to his wife for almost 50 years and she's still alive.

 

I guess it could be seen as a blessing you're not more familiar with the phrase.

 

RIP Jimmy

 

MichiganPhotoRod

July 23rd, 2011 at 6:53 PM ^

Jim Knight, the writer of the article, likely didn't write that paragraph.  Instead, it appears he may have taken it from the obituary itself, which is approved to print by the family.  While it doesn't seem to fit in a sports blog environment, it is, after all, factual and the proper survivor listing format in obituaries.