AuntShecky
11-14-2013, 05:32 PM
This morning, while the MLB network featured a telephone interview by a member of the Baseball Writers of America, this line appeared on the bottom of the TV screen:
Dodgers Beat Writer for the Los Angeles Daily News
For a moment, I thought the word "beat" was a verb and that the 2013 NL West Division Champions team had either engaged in fisticuffs with the writer or that the team won a game against the guy. Then it dawned on me that "beat" was a noun, a journalistic term, and the ambiguous line was merely describing the talk show guest.
This is an example of a "crash blossom" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0), a term coined in August of 2009 by Dan Bloom upon the head-scratching headline:
Violinst Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms
With space such a premium for headlines --and more recently media such as Twitter limiting the number of characters -- messages sometimes become so compressed that they can be read two different ways. Such a phenomenon can occur when "little words," as Elizabeth Barrett Browning described them, are left out. Articles such as "the" or "an" are important, as well as forms of the verb "to be." A host of English words have multiple meanings; some can be nouns or verbs. Often the reader cannot immediately tell from the context which is which.
Hence, we see headlines such as
British Left Waffles on Falklands
Gator Attacks Puzzle Experts
That one might have given Will Shortz nightmares.
Tell me, LitNutters, have you been puzzled by ambiguous headlines lately? If you've seen a blossom crash (or a crash blossom), post 'em in this thread!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0
Dodgers Beat Writer for the Los Angeles Daily News
For a moment, I thought the word "beat" was a verb and that the 2013 NL West Division Champions team had either engaged in fisticuffs with the writer or that the team won a game against the guy. Then it dawned on me that "beat" was a noun, a journalistic term, and the ambiguous line was merely describing the talk show guest.
This is an example of a "crash blossom" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0), a term coined in August of 2009 by Dan Bloom upon the head-scratching headline:
Violinst Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms
With space such a premium for headlines --and more recently media such as Twitter limiting the number of characters -- messages sometimes become so compressed that they can be read two different ways. Such a phenomenon can occur when "little words," as Elizabeth Barrett Browning described them, are left out. Articles such as "the" or "an" are important, as well as forms of the verb "to be." A host of English words have multiple meanings; some can be nouns or verbs. Often the reader cannot immediately tell from the context which is which.
Hence, we see headlines such as
British Left Waffles on Falklands
Gator Attacks Puzzle Experts
That one might have given Will Shortz nightmares.
Tell me, LitNutters, have you been puzzled by ambiguous headlines lately? If you've seen a blossom crash (or a crash blossom), post 'em in this thread!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0