Headline history repeating itself?
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Was this inspired by this? Or is it a case of anticipatory plagiarism?
March 22, 2011 @ 8:12 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and the media
« previous post | next post »
Was this inspired by this? Or is it a case of anticipatory plagiarism?
March 22, 2011 @ 8:12 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and the media
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Richard said,
March 22, 2011 @ 8:41 am
More likely it was just a generic pun that everyone likes to get behind.
Or they just want to make the criminals look like an ass.
They couldn't be arsed to think of a better headline?
In hind-sight, maybe stashing it in their can would have been better.
THEY STORED IT IN THEIR FANNY PACK!! (oh my)
Is this what they call "Ghetto Booty"?
He was riding that caboose all the way to Jersey until he got busted.
puns are a back-door to my heart. All the bums on the street will agree!
Ooops, excuse me, I've got some buns in the oven…
In other words, I think it was likely just a lame sense of humour shared by quite a few people. With puns being so easy, it's hard to not get repeats…
[(myl) Please note that this general approach to concealing contraband is no respecter of gender or ethnicity.]
GeorgeW said,
March 22, 2011 @ 8:50 am
Richard: Not bad, butt couldn't you come up with a few more.
Richard said,
March 22, 2011 @ 8:52 am
I was trying not to ham it up too much.
GeorgeW said,
March 22, 2011 @ 8:57 am
Richard: Yeah, I guess there were enough wise cracks for one comment.
Richard said,
March 22, 2011 @ 9:07 am
If these cracks were wiser, they wouldn't have made headlines. When Fonzy told them to "sit on it", I think they got a bit confused…
Mark Etherton said,
March 22, 2011 @ 9:12 am
Wouldn't a better link for anticipatory plagiarism be this: http://www.leseditionsdeminuit.com/f/index.php?sp=liv&livre_id=2600
[(myl) On the theory that in this case, the later the reference, the more original it is?
I first encountered the phrase (and the concept) in Robert Merton's delightful 1965 work On the Shoulders of Giants (which everyone should buy and read if they haven't done so already).
But the link I gave seems to indicate that Churchill used the same phrase in 1927.]
Richard said,
March 22, 2011 @ 9:40 am
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest exclusive gender or ethnicity either, I was just being silly. 54 bags all up there? Impressive amount (to my knowledge!)…I would question why she would hide the $51 and change up there as well though?
Sad thing is if he didn't have that extra 3 bags in her pocket, she probably would have walked.
Martin said,
March 22, 2011 @ 10:21 am
Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
Zythophile said,
March 22, 2011 @ 12:24 pm
@Richard " … she probably would have walked."
But only slowly and carefully, and with her knees together.
Richard said,
March 22, 2011 @ 9:32 pm
Quite true Zythophile!
I couldn't help but read the last thing I said…
"I would question why she would hide the $51 and change up there as well though?" – question mark at the end of an indirect question. I don't know the prescriptive/ 'good writing' rules regarding these (I'd assume use a period), but I see question marks here all the time and it always looks funny…perhaps I was using a bit of uptalk that I reinterpreted at the end as main clause interrogative intonation. Isn't prosody fun?
"Sad thing is if he didn't have that extra 3 bags in her pocket, she probably would have walked." – Not as interesting.. I just broke my phi features… he/she with same referent, that (vs those) '3 bags'
Darlo Paul said,
April 18, 2011 @ 4:46 am
In colloquial British English, a crack is an attempt, effort, try &c, with the added connotation that what is being attempted is not easy. This usage is common is sports commentary. There is a footballer called Nicky Butt. In England we still use the present tense in sports commentary, rather than the awful AmE usage which I call the Future Past ("Jones will make the catch" when we have just seen Jones make the catch). You know what's coming next. I quote; "Butt has a crack".