Sometimes those are at odds with space limitations in a newspaper.
While I understand this headline for a "human interest" story, it still doesn't sound good.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Sentence structure
Sometimes those are at odds with space limitations in a newspaper.
While I understand this headline for a "human interest" story, it still doesn't sound good.
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18 comments:
Reminds me of a neighbor who was so very proud of his involvement in his son's high school sports program that he would repeatedly proclaim, "I'm a big athletic supporter!"
Oh.
Ooooops!
Copyeditors. A dying breed. You see their lack on the web. I don't know how many have saved me from thing like that. Kind of like nurses savind MDs bacon, my RN mom tells me ...
I recently saw one - "The average American eats more than 400 Africans." If I'm not eating any, that means some are eating ... Ack!
The judge said the prisoner is unfair.
The judge said, "The prisoner is unfair."
"The judge," said the prisoner, "is unfair."
English is a great language.
In the parlor with an ice pick...
Seen on a t-shirt:
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them down, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."
Love it! :-)
How about:
"Let's eat, Grandma!"
or
"Let's eat Grandma!"
Did anyone see the first published MSNBC.com story about the death of Neil Armstrong today? The original article title said "Astronaut Neil Young dies." Umm... no, MSNBC. Not quite.
I heard these types of headlines/sentences are called "crash blossoms". One of my favorite is "Handicapped Fish At Trout Farm" My sister said they were being mainstreamed but it could be the headline was just a hook.
If you look at how some of the trouts turn out at fish farms, (carp shaped instead of the normal healthy torpedo shape) they can easily be labeled handicapped.
Sorry to be a nit-picker, but the examples given here mostly concern the ambiguity that results from missing or inaccurate punctuation (which is why "Eats Shoots and Leaves" was such a popular book). The problem with your headline was different: blind can be both a verb and an adjective. Headline writers strive to use the fewest number of words, but really, "Woman Helps Parents of Blind Children" wouldn't have unduly increased the length.
BTW, LOVE the t-shirt message IBParker quoted!
I had to say it out-loud to get the joke.
Sorry, don't get it (English ist not my native language) - for me it says that a women is helping the parents of blind children. What am I overlooking? I don't get the joke, not even when saying it out loud... wait a moment is it verb instead of adjective?
don't feel bad Heterodyne,English is my native language and I didn't get it until I read Hildy's comment.Maybe I've read too many headlines ?
I saw the man on the hill with a telescope.
Who has the telescope? Me? The Man? The Hill?
And since when do telescopes have sawblades?
This makes certain "English" sense when taken in context of "English"following day's picture of school suppies ..... Perhaps those were the teacher -associated supplies?
And then there's intonation:
*I* never said he was a liar."
"I *never* said he was a liar."
"I never *said* he was a liar."
"I never said *he* was a liar."
"I never said he *was* a liar."
"I never said he was a *liar*.
[not sure emphasis on "a" would modulate the meaning]
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