Qaddafi wrestles giant bear?
Several readers have sent me links to a recent headline: Anthony Shadid, "Qaddafi Forces Bear Down on Strategic Town as Rebels Flee", NYT 3/10/2011.
The obligatory screen shot is here.
As everyone observes, this is the mildest kind of crash blossom. But Federico Escobar asks "Who would've guessed Qaddafi had hidden talents as a bear wrestler?" And Rick Rubenstein notes "I'm not sure exactly how you force a bear down, but I'm sure it make *me* flee."
This is not the first ursine crash blossom, and I'm sure it won't be the last:
Update — There are no bears in Jennifer Steinhauer, "Cuts to Head Start Show Challenge of Fiscal Restraint", NYT 3/10/2011. But David Walker writes "Cuts to Head? What? Who got cuts to their head? Then “Start Show” tripped me up, so I had to start over."
When you start with a language where most nouns can be verbed and vice versa — especially the shorter ones — and you add the constraints of headlinese, it's surprising that any headlines *aren't* crash blossoms.
The obligatory screen shot is here.
As everyone observes, this is the mildest kind of crash blossom. But Federico Escobar asks "Who would've guessed Qaddafi had hidden talents as a bear wrestler?" And Rick Rubenstein notes "I'm not sure exactly how you force a bear down, but I'm sure it make *me* flee."
This is not the first ursine crash blossom, and I'm sure it won't be the last:
Update — There are no bears in Jennifer Steinhauer, "Cuts to Head Start Show Challenge of Fiscal Restraint", NYT 3/10/2011. But David Walker writes "Cuts to Head? What? Who got cuts to their head? Then “Start Show” tripped me up, so I had to start over."
When you start with a language where most nouns can be verbed and vice versa — especially the shorter ones — and you add the constraints of headlinese, it's surprising that any headlines *aren't* crash blossoms.
Source: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3022
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