Regulating transgenic grass skirts
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Who can doubt that transgenic grass skirts are in dire need of regulation? Certainly not Nature, which published "Transgenic grass skirts regulators" in its issue of 7/20/2011:
When the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this month that it did not have the authority to oversee a new variety of genetically modified (GM) Kentucky bluegrass, it exposed a serious weakness in the regulations governing GM crops. These are based not on a plant's GM nature but on the techniques used for its genetic modification. With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
The obligatory screen shot:
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Other skirts now in the news include cat skirts, debt battle skirts, deal skirts, pharmacy killer skirts, and even Romney and Obama skirts.
[Hat tip to Joe Eaton]
Yerushalmi said,
July 24, 2011 @ 10:23 am
Shouldn't it be "Transgenic grass skirt regulators"?
sarang said,
July 24, 2011 @ 10:29 am
I believe Nature News specializes in punning headlines. I haven't been collecting examples so can't do the statistics on this, but e.g. I still remember their article about condom breakage titled "A side-splitting tale."
neminem said,
July 24, 2011 @ 11:28 am
Heh. Crashblossoms.com just linked to an excellent one about skirts only a few weeks ago: http://www.crashblossoms.com/archives/483
I am, of course, also pointing crashblossoms.com to this post now too; would only be fitting.
Keith said,
July 26, 2011 @ 8:53 am
Yerushalmi, I think that Mark was making a second joke, based on the punning headline in nature.
The word "skirts" in the Nature headline is the 3rd person singular of the verb "to skirt". I don't know if it is common American usage, but in British English this means "to get around".
If there were really some need to regulate the use of GM grass used to make skirts, then the headline would be "Transgenic grass skirt regulators", as you point out.
The rule is, that adjectives in English are invariable, and so a noun being used as an adjective should be used in its singular form. Sadly, this rule is being broken more and more frequently.
K.
Transgenic grass skirts regulators said,
August 3, 2011 @ 7:51 pm
[…] Submitted by Adam Field via Language Log. […]