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Fun Facts About English #86

12/19/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Kinney Brothers Publishing English regulators language academies

To the chagrin of some and the pleasure of many, English is lacking in any authority to direct its ever-expanding use and lexicon. L’Académie Française, based in Paris, is in charge of overseeing the French language. For Spanish, there is the Real Academia Española. German has the Rat für Deutsche Rechtschreibung. There has never been an equivalent academy for the English language anywhere or at any time.

Historically, there have been a number of outspoken and clearly distressed men of letters who believed English, with all its unruliness, desperately needed a formal academy.

In the mid-17th century, John Dryden, a poet laureate of England, chaired a committee to create such an academy. Unfortunately, as Dryden was attempting to organize, the Great Plague struck London. A year later, the Great Fire of London razed central parts of the city. These events resulted in an equally great exodus from the capital and any hope for an academy was lost.

In the 18th century, Jonathan Swift, best known for his prose satire, Gulliver’s Travels, lobbied the crown for an academy. He stated, “Our Language is extremely imperfect… its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions (and) in many Instances it offends against every Part of Grammar.” Queen Anne supported the idea but passed away before any formal decisions could be made.

In the U.S., a bill for the incorporation of a national language academy was introduced in congress in 1806 but was unsuccessful. During Quincy Adams’ presidency two decades later, an American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres was proposed and then abandoned after receiving little political or public support.

So… whatcha do?

Language references like the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and style guides such as the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage are what many people consider to be at least semi-authoritative. Dictionaries are generally descriptive in that they reflect the organic usage and evolution of English but don’t set out to dictate how the language is to be used. Style guides, on the other hand, are prescriptive; an approach that recommends how the language should be used when composing documents.

Style Guides

A style guide establishes standard style requirements to improve communication by ensuring consistency within a single document and across multiple documents. A style guide may set out standards in areas such as punctuation, capitalization, citing sources, formatting of numbers and dates, and table appearance. A guide may outline recommendations in language composition, visual composition, orthography, and typography. For academic and technical documents, users often reference guides for best practices in ethics such as authorship, research ethics, and disclosure. In pedagogy, users look for guidance in exposition and clarity, or compliance, both technical and regulatory. Of course, all this will depend on the register of the user.

Register, in a general sense, refers to the language used by a group of people who share similar work, research, or interests, and the degree of formality of the language used when creating documents. Document requirements, though they often overlap, will differ by necessity between different groups, such as doctors, lawyers, journalists, and scholars.

English language style guides Kinney Brothers Publishing

For British English, style guides such as H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage and Sir Ernest Gower’s Plain Words: A Guide to the Use of English are very influential. The Modern Humanities Research Association Style Guide (MHRA) is mainly for writing theses. Judith Butcher’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook is a reference guide for editors and those involved in preparing typescripts and illustrations for printing and publication.

In the U.S., The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook contains commonly accepted journalistic standards most U.S. newspapers, magazines, and broadcast writers use it as their go-to style guide. The Chicago Manual of Style is used by writers, editors, and publishers in fiction and nonfiction and often used in the arts and humanities for academic papers. The Modern Language Association’s MLA Handbook is mostly used in the academic world. The Elements of Style is a writer’s companion and considered to be the grandfather of all style guides.

For those looking for humorous and unapologetically opinionated voices on the English language, there are many authors more than willing to assert their preferences, bemoan the inadequacies of our current authorities, and thoroughly berate speakers of the language. They include the Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon’s Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker, and Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

For a fascinating look at the gargantuan effort of documenting a language, you may enjoy The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, and Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary.

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Dude! An Awesome History

11/15/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Although this blog post was part of my weekly Fun Facts About English in October, the history is so culturally rich, I thought it worth publishing as one of my monthly educational posts.

On a sunny summer day in 1965, I was in the front yard with my twin brother, Bobby, playing on our identical red tricycles. I said to him, “Lookit how fast I’m peddlin’, man!” Bobby suddenly dashed into the house like he had to poop. A few moments later, my mother sternly called out to me through the open living-room window, “Donnie! Stop saying “man!”

Yankee Doodle

The tune of Yankee Doodle is far older than the lyrics, is well known across western Europe, and has been used in Holland for centuries as a children’s song. The earliest lyrics we know come from a 15th-century Middle Dutch harvest song. Though some of the words may seem familiar, the English and Dutch mix is largely nonsensical. The cadence, however, is unmistakable:

“Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, Botermilk und tanther.”

The word doodle is derived from either the Low German dudel, meaning “playing music badly,” or dödel, meaning “fool” or “simpleton.” Yankee is recorded in the late 17th century as a nickname; perhaps from the Dutch Janke, a diminutive of Jan (John). Finally, dandy is thought to be a shortened form of 17th-century Jack-a-dandy for “a conceited fellow” and a pet form of the given name Andrew, as in Dandy Andy.

In 18th-century Britain, the term “yankee doodle dandy” implied a fashionable man who goes beyond the pale of reasonable dress and speaks in an outlandishly affected and effeminate manner.

The song Yankee Doodle was written around 1755 by British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Shuckburgh. It was sung by British troops to mock the disheveled and disorganized colonial “Yankees” with whom they served in the seven-year French and Indian War (1756). In defiance, the American soldiers co-opted the song, added verses to mock the British troops, and by the time of the Revolutionary War (1775), turned the insult into a song of national pride.

FYI: The multi-award-winning musical film, Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney (1942), was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Bonus FYI: The state of Connecticut designated Yankee Doodle as the official state song in 1978.

Doodle to Dude

Recent research of the word dude is owed to Barry Popik and Gerald Cohen who have been combing through 19th-century periodicals amassing the world’s largest collection of dude citations. Cohen’s journal, Comments on Etymology, lays out a solidly supported account of the early days of dude.

In the vernacular of the American cowboy and popular press of the late 19th century, the diminutive dude from doodle emerged as a derisive word, like dandy, for an extremely well-dressed Eastern city slicker who knew little of the rugged lifestyle of the new American West. The verbed version of the word is still familiar in the cowboy phrase “all duded up” for getting dressed in fancy clothes.* Dudedom, dudeness, dudery, and dudism are all recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as terms used in the late 1800s to ridicule our foppish friends. In the early 20th century, dude ranches sprang up in many western states catering to wealthy urbanites wanting to vacation in the “cowboy lifestyle.”

In the 1960s, dude began appearing in surfer culture and the Black community with the meaning “fellow” or “guy,” much like bro in the 1970s. Dude continued its creep into the jargon of young Americans in general throughout the twentieth century.

One of the first known references to its contemporary use is the 1969 film, Easy Rider. In the clip below, Peter Fonda explains to Jack Nicholson the meaning of dude, giving us a marvelous linguistic marker in American pop culture:

From “dandy” to “regular guy” to “cool,” dude was further popularized in American films of the 80s and 90s, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Wayne’s World, and Clerks. The ultimate dude, based on the personality of Viet Nam war activist Jeff Dowd, was played by Jeff Bridges in the 1998 cult film, The Big Lebowski. Bridges’ character, The Dude, inspired Dudeism, a new religion that promotes a rebel-shrug philosophy and the mantra, “Just take it easy, man.”

Dudeism’s objective is to promote a modern form of Chinese Taoism, blended with concepts from the Ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, and presented in a style as personified by the character of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski.

In 2008, the beer company, Bud Light, aired an advertising campaign in which the dialogue consists entirely of different inflections of “Dude!” without ever mentioning the product name.

As we move further into the 21st century, the female equivalents dudette and dudess failed to acquire any linguistic legs and have fallen out of use. Among many young Americans, dude is now considered a unisex term in much the way guys is used to address a group of men or women. Studies reveal that, though dude is used today in every possible gender combination, it is not used by men to address women in their intimate relationships.

I’ll finish with this Millienial-age gem I found in my research:

“I call my mother ‘dude.’ She doesn’t like it.”

*Not to be confused with the word duds, as in “I got my best duds on.” c. 1300, dudde “cloak, mantle,” later, in plural, “clothes,” especially “ragged clothing.”

Fun Facts About English #83

11/13/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

The acronym POTUS (President of the United States) also began as a telegraphic code around 1895. FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States) didn’t appear until the 1980s, where it may have originated as the Secret Service’s code name for Nancy Reagan.

Acronyms and initialisms have been part of our language for a very, very long time, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that our need for more contractions began percolating. During the 20th century, they moved into the parlance of our everyday lives. Today, like telegraphers of old, we deftly tap out abbreviated messages, relaying them to recipients near and far with a device we carry in our pockets. Consider this example:

GR8 ASAP THX IDK AZ ACCT PIN POTUS on FOX @IHOP in SF SMH USA FUBAR 2M2H ARR LAX @8AM 2MORO TTYL I❤︎U

Great! As soon as possible. Thanks. I don’t know the personal identification code for the Arizona account. The President of the United States is on Fox News at the International House of Pancakes in San Francisco. I’m shaking my head. The United States of America is fucked up beyond all repair. It’s too much to handle. I will arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.

While some may look at the message as a breakdown of language in a modern world, it helps to consider its density. The code relays a lot of information in a short space. That is the simple function of acronyms. The online dictionary, Acronym Finder, lists five million entries divided into categories like Information Technology (IT), Military & Government Agencies, Business & Finance Agencies, and Pop Culture. Today, acronyms are so ubiquitous, linguists see their 20th and 21st-century use as a language phenomenon moving in tandem with our industrial and post-industrial ages.

Acronyms vs Initialisms vs Abbreviations

In general, abbreviations shorten a word or phrase but don’t always create new words, e.g., Dec. is pronounced “December,” and N.Y. is still “New York.”

An acronym, on the other hand, is an abbreviation where the first letter or series of letters in a phrase create a new “pronounceable” word, e.g., NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Acronym is commonly used to include both acronyms and initialisms.

The term initialism (1899) is older than acronym (1940), but less often used. As the word implies, it’s an abbreviation consisting of initial letters that are pronounced separately, like CPU (central processing unit), and the four-century-old AM/PM (ante meridiem, “before noon”/post meridiem, “after noon”).

Ancient Acronyms

Two thousand years ago, when larger works required labor-intensive use of clay, stone, and metal, and parchment was an expensive commodity, artists, engravers, and copyists were forced to use their resources efficiently. Throughout the medieval period, when writing implements and parchment were scarce, acronyms were more frequent. Terms like RIP (requiescat in pace; “Rest in Peace”), or the abbreviation Xmas, (Χριστος, Christ; “Christmas”), are quite ancient and served as a revered shorthand in early religious writing. More examples, both BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era) include:

SPQR – The official name for the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it (Senatus Populusque Romanus). The Italians have long used a different and humorous expansion of this abbreviation, “Sono Pazzi Questi Romani” (literally: “They’re crazy, these Romans”).
ΙΧΘΥΣ – The early Christians in Rome used the image of a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronym: “fish” in Greek is ichthys (ΙΧΘΥΣ), which stands for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ (Iesous Christos Theou huios Soter; “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”).
INRI – For centuries, the Church has used the inscription INRI over the crucifix, (Latin Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum; “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”).
TANAKH – The Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”) An acronym composed of the Hebrew initial letters of its three major sections: “Torah” (five books of Moses), “Nevi’im” (prophets), and “K’tuvim” (writings).

Modern Acronyms

From the late 19th century, a trend of abbreviation use began in the fields of business, science, technology, government, and the military. Convenience, space restrictions, and cost are some of the reasons contractions became popular, if not necessary.

The American and European business communities of the late Victorian era led the charge. Shortened versions of company names started appearing on the sides of railway cars, on barrels, ticker tapes, newspaper headlines, stock listings, and in telegraph code manuals. Examples include RF&P (Richmond Fredricksburg and Potomac Railroad), AT&T (American Telegraph and Telephone Company), Nabisco (National Biscuit Company), and Sunco (Sun Oil Company). These contractions were treated as abbreviations and initialisms. The habit of forming pronounceable acronyms wouldn’t take off until the mid 20th century.

By the end of the Great Wars, the common vernacular adopted many military acronyms like G.I.s (General Issue/Galvanized Iron) for soldiers, AWOL (Absent Without Leave) for those deserting their ranks, and SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up.) Today, one needn’t have served in the military to know acronyms like MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital), AFB (Air Force Base), and DOA (dead on arrival). We learn to navigate this language in popular media, highway signage, government forms, IDs (identification), and in daily TV (television) news reporting.

During WWI (World War 1) and WWII (World War 2), when letters to and from soldiers overseas numbered in the billions, our great grandparents were doing their own form of sexting on the backs of envelopes: SWAK (sealed with a kiss), NORWICH (kNickers Off Ready When I Come Home), CHINA (Come Home I’m Naked Already); and from sailors, OOLAAKOEW (Oceans Of Love And A Kiss On Every Wave). These patriotic missives were referred to as V-Mail (Victory Mail).

FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) was well known for his New Deal alphabet agencies, like CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp), CWA (Civil Works Administration), and DRS (Drought Relief Service). With the explosion of acronyms came YABA (yet another bloody acronym) and the need for “YABA-compatible” abbreviations in government and the military that could be easily pronounced while not creating an offensive word.

As acronyms moved into common use, from whence they came is sometimes forgotten. Relatively recent acronyms that have lost their initialized form to become common words include RADAR (radio detection and ranging, 1940s), SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, 1950s), and LASER (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, 1960s).

While the younger generation will never know how hip and cool things like CB radios (citizen’s band radio), VCRs (videocassette recorders), and FAXs (facsimiles) once were, with the times, so goes the technology. In the 21st century, as we move deeper and more wholly into an online world, Millennials have taken the ball and are running.

The wide use of text messaging and the need for abbreviated language to fit character limits, SMS (short message service), IM (instant messenger), and platforms like Twitter have dedicated patrons inventing acronyms as fast as we can learn them. Just about every sector of military and civilian life has its own list of must-know acronyms. Today’s youth, like medieval scribes of old, write private messages in a revered code: GF/BF (girlfriend/boyfriend), BFF (best friend forever), DL (down-low), BAE (before anyone else), #’s (hashtags), and /s (end sarcasm.) According to online search data, the top ten in this category include:

ROFL – Rolling on the floor laughing.
STFU – Shut the fuck up.
LMK – Let me know.
ILY – I love you.
YOLO – You only live once.
SMH – Shaking my head.
LMFAO – Laughing my fucking ass off.
NVM – Never mind.
IKR – I know, right?
OFC – Of course.

While prescriptivists disdain abbreviations for degrading clarity and proper language, others argue that evolution is inevitable where changes most often occur in response to a cultural need. In a fast-paced world, that need is brevity, convenience, and saving space.

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Fun Facts About English #84

11/05/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Often presented to students as a linguistic puzzle, the sentence demonstrates grammatical ambiguity. Where written language lacks the critical element of a human expressing it, punctuation serves as a necessary substitute for intonation, stress, and pauses used in speech.

Disambiguated, the sentence reads, “It is true for all that, that that “that” which that “that” refers to is not the same “that” that that “that” refers to.”

If still unclear, this may help to unravel its meaning: “It is true, despite everything you say, that this word to which this word refers, is not the same word to which this word refers.”

Ambiguity

Ambiguity in language appears in a variety of ways, intentional or not, with some cases more celebrated than others. Consider the difference between the ‘suggestive’ language of poetry and a ‘misleading’ advertisement. Ambiguity can be the result of an absurd juxtaposition or the sudden and hilarious turn in a comedian’s routine. In a world where transparency and clarity seem to be the goal, we are often on guard against social uncertainty, while at the same time give ourselves wholly to the lyrics in a favorite song – whether we completely understand them or not.

To understand how language works, linguists differentiate lingual ambiguity into a variety of categories, including lexical (words and their definitions), syntactic (words in context), phonological (the sounds of words), and semantic (meaning in language and logic). The research goes further into the field of neurolinguistics; the playground of cognitive scientists who study the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.

For case studies, there’s no better place to begin than with toddlers, whose rapid acquisition of language brings about valiant but flawed attempts at language construction. Pity the poor parents who, upon pain of an emotional meltdown, must mentally sort compound mashes that only an emphatic toddler can construct.

“A father of a little boy goes upstairs after supper to read to his son, but he brings the wrong book. The boy says, ‘What did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?'”

Humor

At the crossroads of lingual uncertainty and clarity sits humor. A good comedian is a master manipulator of such language. Combined with comical timing, a standup artist uses the sometimes ambiguous nature of language to trip confusion and, in turn, make you laugh. It’s a linguist’s pleasure to understand the mechanics of humor and how ambiguity, from set-up to punch line, fuels a comedic routine.

Lexical ambiguity, which is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word, is the anchor of many children’s riddles and wordplay. One of the first jokes I remember telling was, “Why is the corn angry at the farmer? Because he keeps pulling their ears.” I might have found this especially funny at the time because my own father was an ear puller.

Syntactical ambiguity, the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words, is part of many comedians’ strategies for surprising their audience.

Phonological ambiguity occurs when words sound identical but have different meanings. The standup talents, Abbot and Costello, rely on this confusion in their legendary “Who’s on First?” comedy routine. Likewise, the puzzling aspect of the sentence, “Rose rose to put rose roes on her rows of roses,” rests on a series of homophonous words. When rewritten for clarity, the sentence is far less lyrical or interesting: “A woman named Rose got up to put red fish eggs on the bands of flowers after which she was named.”

Headlines

There are occasions when syntactical ambiguity enters more sober spheres. Cognitive confusion occurs when it’s difficult to determine if a newspaper headline is purposefully being humorous or not. Headline-ese relies on loaded words and expressions to attract a reader’s attention. This and a stringent need for lexical brevity can result in unintended smirking and chortling.

The Last Word

The brain has a particular response to semantic incongruities as well. Sometimes known as senseless or absurd sentences, they result in what some call an absurdist’s humor. The Flaming Lips used this brand of ambiguity in their song, “She Don’t Use Jelly” from the album, Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, to drive a light-hearted song about friends with peculiar habits:

I know a girl who thinks of ghosts
She’ll make ya breakfast
She’ll make ya toast
But she don’t use butter
And she don’t use cheese
She don’t use jelly
Or any of these
She uses Vaseline
Vaseline
Vaseline

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Fun Facts About English #85

11/01/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

ablaut reduplication Kinney Brothers Publishing

To understand this anomaly, we’ll need to review a few grammar points.

Adjectives

An adjective is a word or phrase that describes a noun, e.g., small, red, or state-of-the-art. When using multiple adjectives in a sentence, there are two orders: coordinate and cumulative adjectives.

Coordinate adjectives are in the same category and require a comma between each one:

My dog is brown, black, and white. (color)
This is a Spanish, English, and French dictionary. (purpose)
He’s intelligent, handsome, funny, and a great dancer! (opinion)

Cumulative adjectives come from various categories and don’t require commas, but must be ‘stacked’ in a specific order:

Opinion
Size
Age
Shape
Color
Origin
Material
Purpose

This is a cute little blue bag.
We rode two gorgeous big black Arabian horses.
I have a tiny 10-week-old brown beagle puppy.

Reduplicates

Reduplication is when a word or part of a word is repeated and sometimes modified to make a longer term, like hush-hush or boogie-woogie. There are two types of reduplicates: exact and rhyming.

Exact: goody-goody, choo-choo, bye-bye, wee-wee, yum-yum, aye-aye, boo-boo, so-so, tut-tut, no-no, night-night, poo-poo, yada-yada, ta-ta
Rhyming: okey-dokey, itsy-bitsy, arty-farty, razzle-dazzle, fancy-schmancy, walkie-talkie, raggle-taggle, super-duper, boo-hoo

Interestingly, there are a large number of ‘h’ words in the rhyming group: hocus-pocus, hanky-panky, hokey-pokey, hoity-toity, higglety-pigglety, harem-scarem, helter-skelter, holy-moly, honey-bunny, hum-drum, Handy Andy, Humpty Dumpty, Henny Penny

Ablaut Reduplication

Ablaut is a term introduced by the 19th-century German linguist, Jacob Grimm, the elder of the Brothers Grimm duo. Ablaut refers to a vowel change which, in reduplicates, often follows a particular vowel pattern, such as zigzag or sing-song. If there are two words, the first vowel is I and the second is usually either A or O. If there are three words then the order is often I, A, O.

Two-Word: flim-flam, knick-knack, mingle-mangle, dilly-dally, pitter-patter, chit-chat, Tic Tac, wishy-washy, criss-cross, flip-flop, tick-tock, ping pong, clippity-cloppity, bibbity-bobbity, King Kong
Three-Word: bing-bang-bong, ding-dang-dong, bish-bash-bosh, splish-splash-splosh, clink-clank-clunk

We have our Germanic/Old English heritage to thank for this familiar vowel pattern. A similar vowel shift occurs with verb conjugations like drink, drank, drunk (trinken, tranken, getrunken) or sing, sang, sung (singen, sang, gesungen).

The Anomaly of The Big Bad Wolf

If we understand that cumulative adjectives are stacked in a specific order, a sentence with the words bad (opinion), big (size), and wolf (noun) should read, “bad big wolf.” This logic holds true for “cute little kittens,” “scary old house,” or “nice long drive.” So, why are the two adjectives in “big bad wolf” flipped? The writer, Mark Forsyth, explains this phenomenon in his title, The Elements of Eloquence.

The reason “big bad wolf” is reversed is that the phrase skips the stacked-order rule to follow the ablaut reduplicative I-A scheme where big-bad acts like zig-zag! It would be easy to assume this anomalous ordering is the way it’s always been said, until you look at early versions of The Three Little Pigs. In Jacob’s English Fairy Tales (1890), the story includes “not by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin” and lots of huffing and puffing, but not the phrase “big bad wolf.” In the much older Grimm’s Fairy Tales version, you’ll find the piggy threesomes’ “Tra-la-la!” refrain, as well as the agreeably-ordered “wicked black wolf,” but no “big bad wolf.” So, when did this happen?

In 1933, the song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” was featured in Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony rendition of The Three Little Pigs. The theme song was a Depression-era hit and continues to be one of Disney’s most well-known songs. So successful was the animation, the studio spun several sequels. The theme song was repeated in The Big Bad Wolf with Little Red Riding Hood, and Li’l Bad Wolf, the son of Big Bad Wolf. Interestingly, the wolf pup inherited his father’s ablaut reduplication, further cementing the adjectival reversal in our collective memories.

So, now you know! (I was going to say “That’s all folks!” but remembered that’s a different pig altogether.)

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Fun Facts About English #77

10/30/2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Kinney Brothers Publishing Fun Facts About English Headlines

“The headline screamed at him as soon as he saw the paper. He almost screamed back.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

The familiar large-type, front-page headline didn’t come into use until the later 19th century as increased competition among newspapers led to the need for attention-grabbing headlines. This practice has successfully carried over from print news to online news with “screaming” headlines urging you to click through and read more.

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Some of the most famous, creative, and notorious headlines take us back in history, provide a window into the state of the culture, and can even shape our collective response. Though the idea of a creative guy with his feet on a desk being paid to brainstorm snappy headlines works well in the movies, the reality of the business is staider with a hierarchy of accountability.

The headline is often the duty of copy editors. Writers may suggest a headline, but beyond word count, they may know little about the space in the paper and how the story will appear. A section editor or editor-in-chief may overrule the copy editor before the layout becomes final. Collectively, their efforts don’t go unrecognized – or ridiculed if bold errors are made. In the United States, headline contests are sponsored by the American Copy Editors Society and the National Federation of Press Women.

Because a physical newspaper’s above-the-fold, front-page real estate is the most valuable, newspapers developed a set of grammatical rules for an abbreviated or compressed telegraphic style known as headlinese. The syntactic conventions include:

“Be” verbs and articles (a, an, the) are usually omitted.
Most verbs are in the simple present tense.
The conjunction and is often replaced by a comma.
Surnames are used with no honorifics.
Organizations and institutions are indicated by metonymy: Wall Street, White House, California, etc.
Abbreviations, contractions, and acronyms are used wherever possible.
No periods are used even if the headline forms a complete sentence.

Word choice and word alternatives are also of paramount importance for saving space. This forces editors to be painfully blunt or wildly idiosyncratic in their creative effort to relay as much information in the shortest space possible.

Alternative word choices include:

axe (eliminate)
bid (attempt)
blast (heavily criticize)
hike (increase)
ink (sign a contract)
mull (contemplate)
nab (grab)
nix (reject)
pen (write)
slam (heavily criticize)
tout (promote)

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Kinney Brothers Publishing Famous Headlines

With this abbreviated writing style, the media has been criticized for their overuse of words such as slam, blast, rip, and bash, drawing comparisons to professional wrestling matches rather than sober journalism. This over-reliance on the promise of a titillating or conflict-laden narrative gave rise to the 21st-century internet term clickbait.

FYI: The term clickbait was invented by Jay Geiger in a blogpost written in December of 2006.

Headlinese can also go awry. When a headline delivers a message that is unintended or is so ambiguous as to have multiple interpretations, it’s known as Crash Blossoms. The term comes from a 2009 Japan Times news article with the headline, “Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms.” The article was later re-titled, “Violinist shirks off her tragic image.”

Kinney Brothers Publishing Famous Headlines 2

Another example of Crash Blossoms is The Times 2019 headline “Hospitals named after sandwiches kill five.” Normally, readers have come to expect the word named to mean “blamed” or “held accountable.” In this case, the headline can be humorously interpreted to mean “Hospitals named after sandwiches, kill five.”

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a few knee-slapping headlines from companies that scrape the bottom of the yellow journalists’ barrel. When doing research for this post, the internet offered up no end of historical tabloid headlines so outrageous, you’d have to be an idiot or member of some online cult to actually believe them. Unfortunately, there are numerous faux “news” companies more than willing to take advantage of gullible people.

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Kinney Brothers Publishing Outrageous Headlines

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