Language Log

Via Lisa McLendon, aka Madam Grammar, comes this unfortunately (un)punctuated headline currently on Drudge Report:

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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:

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.

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 […]

Emma Little, "Fish foot spa virus bombshell", The Sun, 10/18/2011. [h/t John Coleman]

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 […]