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April 15, 2014 @ 12:43 pm
· Filed under Usage advice
Following up on "A nation in which supports dependency" (7/9/2012), Glenn Bingham has sent me an annotated compendium of "Samples in which hypercorrections are in", reproduced below as a guest post. Glenn's diagnosis is that these examples arise by way of an attempt to "sound erudite" by adding an extra preposition at the start of […]
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February 14, 2014 @ 3:52 pm
· Filed under ambiguity, Parsing, Syntax
The worst choice of preposition-phrase modifier placement anywhere in the world last week was probably the one at the E! online page. The headline read as follows: Cameron Diaz Encourages Women to Keep Their Pubic Hair in Her New Book Women of the world, listen to Language Log: stop keeping locks of your pubic hair […]
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January 11, 2014 @ 6:03 am
· Filed under Crash blossoms, Headlinese
Katia Dmitrieva, "Madonna addicted to sweat dance plugs Toronto condos: Mortgages", Bloomberg News 1/10/2014 — Reader CD, a hardened journalistic veteran, calls this "a rare American noun pile headline": It’s a spectacular garden path which turns out to be a noun pile. I’m pretty good at parsing headlinese but I had no idea what the […]
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November 29, 2013 @ 7:18 am
· Filed under Computational linguistics, Language and the media
Chris Hanretty, "British headlines: 18% less informative than their American cousins", 11/29/2013: I’m currently working on a project looking at the representation of constituency opinion in Parliament. One of our objectives involves examining the distribution of parliamentary attention — whether MPs from constituencies very concerned by immigration talk more about immigration than MPs from constituencies […]
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August 22, 2013 @ 10:47 am
· Filed under Language and gender, Language and the media
Bradley Manning, just recently sentenced for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, has released a statement announcing, "I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female." Manning also gave instructions on his-now-her preferred personal pronouns: I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my […]
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June 25, 2013 @ 5:53 am
· Filed under Crash blossoms
Noun pile? Crash Blossom? We report, you decide… Rollin Bishop, "Quest for Giant Bomb E3 Set Porn Bears Fruit", 6/24/2013: The Electronic Entertainment Expo — E3 for short — is held in Los Angeles every year, typically in June, and it means that a lot of journalists descend upon the area in short order. This […]
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June 20, 2013 @ 6:05 am
· Filed under Headlinese, Language and the media
Joe Manfre writes: I was looking through a Flickr group celebrating the always sensationalist headlines for the Argus newspaper in Brighton and Hove, and in it I found a few pretty good noun piles: FIREWORKS BLAZE BOSS VERDICT HOVE GARDEN POND CLASH – PICTURE BLAZE DEATH MURDER QUIZ DOG KNIFE KILLING VERDICT BRIGHTON COCKROACH CURRY […]
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June 1, 2013 @ 10:07 pm
· Filed under ambiguity, Crash blossoms, Language and the media
Here are two entertainment news headlines that are difficult to parse without knowing in advance what they're reporting on. First up, from TIME, a headline on a May 31 piece by TV critic James Poniewozik: Second, from Cinema Blend, a headline on a post earlier today by Mack Rawden:
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March 15, 2013 @ 3:11 am
· Filed under Crash blossoms
Giacomo Sillari sent in this snapshot of a news-stand display: The sign juxtaposes teasers for two different stories, one the election of Pope Francis, and the other a multiple murder and suicide in Umbria.
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January 23, 2013 @ 9:27 pm
· Filed under Idioms, Language and the media, Language on the internets
Sima (long-term resident in China) from www.sinoglot.com writes: I've been a regular Sina Weibo [VHM: PRC clone of Twitter] user for some time and enjoy default news updates on my phone. Each update usually has two stories and, of late, almost invariably, one is about the outing of a corrupt official (cash, apartments, mistresses) and […]
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September 10, 2012 @ 7:50 am
· Filed under Headlinese, Language and culture
Emma Little, "Fish foot spa virus bombshell", The Sun, 10/18/2011. [h/t John Coleman]
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June 28, 2012 @ 11:23 am
· Filed under Language and the media
U.S. SUPREME COURT SAYS UPHOLDS HEALTH CARE MANDATE — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 28, 2012 That was the tweet sent out this morning by Reuters, which got the news out about the Supreme Court decision at 10:07:43 Eastern Daylight Time, evidently just 12 seconds after Bloomberg beat them to it. (They both trumped CNN […]
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April 21, 2012 @ 5:43 am
· Filed under Crash blossoms, Headlinese, Psychology of language
SC, a native reader of British headlinese, was baffled by the noun pile-up "Coin change 'skin problem fear'" on the BBC News web site, because he hadn't previously encountered the story.
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