Headline misdirection
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From Jesse Sheidlower, this headline:
Hooker Overcomes Illness, Slaps Beaver
It's a puzzler. Jesse says:
It's not about what you think it's about. Really. No matter what you think it's about, that's not it.
Well, for a hint: it's in the sports section of the High Plains Daily / Southwest Daily online Leader & Times. Full story here.
Sports headlines are often misdirective in much the way this one is, with its compressed local references and its punchy verb. If you don't know the context, knowing English won't really suffice.
[Addendum: The headline above is as it came from Jesse Sheidlower. But what's on the Leader & Times site now (as Coby Lubliner pointed out to me) is less baffling:
Hooker overcomes illness, slaps Beaver 64-57
This has caps only on Hooker and Beaver, and has a score, which tells us we're in sportsland.
Perhaps the site has been edited.]