February 6, 2010
Crash Blossoms
In their quest for concision, writers of newspaper headlines are, like Robert Browning, inveterate sweepers away of little words, and the dust they kick up can lead to some amusing ambiguities. Legendary headlines from years past (some of which verge on the mythical) include “Giant Waves Down Queen Mary’s Funnel,” “MacArthur Flies Back to Front” and “Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans.” The Columbia Journalism Review even published two anthologies of ambiguous headlinese in the 1980s, with the classic titles “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim” and “Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge.”From the NY Times. Gotta get those anthologies, but it looks as if they are out of print and not cheap!
Two other classics from the article: “McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers" and "British Left Waffles on Falklands".
Posted by David on February 6, 2010 10:29 AM
I see by the snailpapers [GOOGLE THE TERM] in Britain that a major literary agent has signed up a top journo there to write an "on language" type of book about CRASH BLOSSOMS in the English-language media the world over, for publication in 2012 -- and advance of US$25,000 is being reported, the writer keeping low profile, book capitalizing on Ben Zimmer's recent New York Times "On Language" article about said "crash blossoms" and how they, er, blossomed..... THE BOOK SHOULD BE A WINNER! BRAVO!
I see by the snailpapers in Britain that a major literary agent has signed up a top journo there to write an "on language" type of book about CRASH BLOSSOMS in the English-language media the world over, for publication in 2012 -- and advance of US$25,000 is being reported, the writer keeping low profile, book capitalizing on Ben Zimmer's recent New York Times "On Language" article about said "crash blossoms" and how they, er, bloomed, er, blossomed ..... THE BOOK SHOULD BE A WINNER! BRAVO!
No, the book won't be Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim, and Other Flubs from the Nation's Press published by Columbia Journal in 1980, before the term "crash blossoms" bloomed, and no, it won't be titled Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge a 1987 tome by Gloria Cooper. The title of the Crash Blossoms book is still tentative but for sure CRASH BLOSSOMS will appear in the title. Any suggestions for what to call this book? I will forward them on to the literary agent, the editor and the author.
The book also will not be titled Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language which Richard Lederer did in 1987.
Posted by: dan bloom on February 6, 2010 9:24 PM
by the way, ...., a friend of mine in California, last name FULLER, has created a new subspecies of strange or humorous headlines and we are calling their Crash Fullers as a new coinage. These are headlines that read correctly, are not like the strangely worded crash blossoms we all now like to joke about, but these Crash Fullers contain a person's first or last name in the headline such as a recent NYTimes headline that reads:
CHINA ASKS FOR FULLER PARTICIPATION IN IPCC
SUch headlines could also carry such names as
Shoemaker, Handler, Gardner, etc....... good idea?
long live Crash Fullers!
Posted by: dan bloom on February 11, 2010 7:44 PM
gmail.com