Indiana poll bears

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Reader K.N. comments on a WSJ headline "Indiana Poll Bears Good News for Trump":

To my surprise, the article does concerns neither actual ursines nor pundits who feel Indiana polls will be worth less than they are now. It also fails to explain why people in Fort Wayne were cheering a glowing effigy of Mr. Trump (see attached scan of article, page A4 of the Monday, May 4 edition sold in Mobile, AL.)

The story (or at least the headline) doesn't seem to be on line.

The obligatory screen shot:



13 Comments

  1. Gregory Kusnick said,

    May 3, 2016 @ 2:09 pm

    Well, at least polar bears will have career options under a Trump administration after the ice melts.

  2. Quodlibet said,

    May 3, 2016 @ 3:40 pm

    I never knew bears had horns.

  3. Herschel Schwartz said,

    May 3, 2016 @ 5:05 pm

    A. I can't help but analyzing this with the reading of 'bear' as a verb, even in a title.
    B. Have you encountered otherwise 'screenshot' moving into the non-digital domain to cover print newspapers etc.?

  4. Rod Johnson said,

    May 3, 2016 @ 10:22 pm

    I'm not seeing any ambiguity, or any reading with "bears" as a noun. Is the issue that it's stylistically unusual?

  5. Noscitur a sociis said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 12:15 am

    "Have you encountered otherwise 'screenshot' moving into the non-digital domain to cover print newspapers etc.?"

    I imagine Prof. Liberman meant a screenshot of the email that K.N. sent to him, which apparently included a digital photograph (or "scan") of the newspaper.

  6. Ricky said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 10:24 am

    Why is this ambiguous or odd? The poll is bearing good news for Trump…

  7. richardelguru said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 10:56 am

    Influence of the "Good News Bears" perhaps?

  8. Breffni said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 11:29 am

    Rod Johnson, Ricky: the other possible reading is "Indiana poll bears [are] good news for Trump".

  9. parkrrrr said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 1:59 pm

    Aren't poll bears the guys who carry the casket after a funeral?

  10. Brett said,

    May 4, 2016 @ 5:24 pm

    @parkrrrr: I once worked with a guy named Paul Berry. He got a lot of that.

  11. Yuval said,

    May 5, 2016 @ 5:42 am

    And where do Indiana pallbearers stand on this matter?

  12. Rod Johnson said,

    May 5, 2016 @ 7:49 am

    Breffni: d'oh! A weird bit of syntax blindness on my part.

  13. chris said,

    May 10, 2016 @ 6:29 pm

    Bears at properly chosen polling places actually could be good news for Trump. It's a natural extension of his party's other stances on voting rights issues.

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