Does "not" mean the same thing as "extremely"?
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Today's Vancouver Sun has an article entitled:
Sasquatch evidence 'extremely compelling,' Idaho academic says.
But the article quotes the "Idaho academic" as saying:
It was not compelling in the least.
Karen said,
August 18, 2008 @ 5:46 am
At the end of the article is this quote, however:
"I was hoping to convey to you that there is a body of data that is extremely compelling," said Meldrum. "I am convinced there is something out there. Something is leaving footprints. There's something out there that begs for our consideration."
So he doesn't find the alleged dead sasquatch body compelling – or evidence – but he does think the "evidence" is compelling.
Carl M said,
August 18, 2008 @ 7:25 am
Well, Karen beat me to it. This isn't to say that the body of evidence actually IS compelling, but Meldrum certainly said it was. Given that, I see nothing terribly wrong with the headline. (It's true of course that it may be interpreted by casual readers as talking about the recent "evidence" and not the body of evidence.)
Ray Girvan said,
August 18, 2008 @ 9:06 am
Yes, but leading with a distinctive word like "compelling", it's inevitable that the reader's attention will be drawn to its first occurrence in the text, not one in the penultimate sentence when we've long since lost interest unless madly keen on Sasquatch stories.
Ransom said,
August 18, 2008 @ 10:57 am
If it's not compelling in the least, it must be compelling in the most!
Right? =)
John Cowan said,
August 18, 2008 @ 10:57 am
The headline now reads: "'There's something out there,' Sasquatch expert tells Edmonton". Way better.
Bill Poser said,
August 18, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
It isn't simply that the first instance of "compelling" in the story is the one in which Meldrum says that the evidence produced by the two guys from Georgia isn't compelling; I read the entire article. It's that the alleged find of a body is the only thing that is news. All the rest of the putative evidence for the existence of sasquatch has been there for some time. It's like running a story entitled "Yet another burglary strikes town" where the actual story is that what at first seemed to be the latest in a string of burglaries was actually a case in which someone left the door unlocked and the wind blew it open.
Bill Poser said,
August 18, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
Here's a screenshot of the original article:
Carl said,
August 18, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
It was "extremely" compelling. It was just at the lowest extreme, instead of the upper extreme.
Ralph Hickok said,
August 20, 2008 @ 9:44 am
A headline should not be based on something that appears far down in the story. In fact, it ought to be based on something that appears in the first paragraph. That's something I learned when I wrote my first newspaper headline, at the age of 14 (many years ago).