This should've been posted yesterday
Though the solstice has come and gone, summertime has only just begun for me. With my undergraduate career being recently ended, I have returned to Huntsville and am able to enjoy my mornings in shirtless seclusion. I am also able to enjoy our daily paper, the Huntsville Times, and to wonder over its terribly worded headlines.
Saturday's:
Coast Clearing for Dennis
and Sunday's:
Ending School-Deseg Bind is Tall Order
The meanings of these sailed, whoosh, right over my head.
Now I will freely concede that the brow I furrowed over Saturday's headline was one that was backed by a thick head, but I remain convinced that a more precise idiom could have been used in place of "coast clearing" to tell of an evacuation. I immediately interpreted the phrase to have meant "the coastal weather is clearing." Like I said before - my thick head.
But Sunday's, Lord have mercy, Sunday's. I couldn't believe such gobbledygook had made it into the paper, yet there it was, plastered bold-face on the front page. Ending School Deseg-Bind is Tall Order. Where are you, Pete, when your sake is forsaken?
What we have here is an editor's attempt to blurb the unblurbable. The article tells of a three and a half decade-old desegregation order which continues to impose sluggish federal oversight on local school authorities. But rather than clearly state the topic of the article, the bright folks at the Huntsville Times chose to use another, slightly punny idiomatic expression and to unusually abbreviate and afterward hyphenate the word 'desegregation.'
In their honor and after their example, I have decided to unnecessarily muddle some recent, newsworthy events into indecipherable headlines. Please feel free to add your own.
For an article about Tony Blair's televised comments concerning the London bombings:
Blair's Remarks Make a G8 Splash
For coverage of the hurrican aftermath:
Dennis Menaces Panhandle
For an article about the Chinese government's acquisition of UNOCAL (of course, this article could never receive frontpage treatment while Tom Cruise is still roaming the countryside, wildly gesticulating and frothing at the mouth):
Sino-Comp on a Petro-Romp
Etc., etc.
Saturday's:
Coast Clearing for Dennis
and Sunday's:
Ending School-Deseg Bind is Tall Order
The meanings of these sailed, whoosh, right over my head.
Now I will freely concede that the brow I furrowed over Saturday's headline was one that was backed by a thick head, but I remain convinced that a more precise idiom could have been used in place of "coast clearing" to tell of an evacuation. I immediately interpreted the phrase to have meant "the coastal weather is clearing." Like I said before - my thick head.
But Sunday's, Lord have mercy, Sunday's. I couldn't believe such gobbledygook had made it into the paper, yet there it was, plastered bold-face on the front page. Ending School Deseg-Bind is Tall Order. Where are you, Pete, when your sake is forsaken?
What we have here is an editor's attempt to blurb the unblurbable. The article tells of a three and a half decade-old desegregation order which continues to impose sluggish federal oversight on local school authorities. But rather than clearly state the topic of the article, the bright folks at the Huntsville Times chose to use another, slightly punny idiomatic expression and to unusually abbreviate and afterward hyphenate the word 'desegregation.'
In their honor and after their example, I have decided to unnecessarily muddle some recent, newsworthy events into indecipherable headlines. Please feel free to add your own.
For an article about Tony Blair's televised comments concerning the London bombings:
Blair's Remarks Make a G8 Splash
For coverage of the hurrican aftermath:
Dennis Menaces Panhandle
For an article about the Chinese government's acquisition of UNOCAL (of course, this article could never receive frontpage treatment while Tom Cruise is still roaming the countryside, wildly gesticulating and frothing at the mouth):
Sino-Comp on a Petro-Romp
Etc., etc.