Posts Tagged ‘crash blossoms’
Crash Blossoms
Do you see the ambiguity in these newspaper headlines?
McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers
Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space Craft
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Real Estate Executive Sold on City Market
Pecan Scab Disease Causing Nuts to Fall Off
Deer and Turkey Hunt for Disabled People
They work because English has so many words that function as both nouns and verbs. When you strip away unnecessary words, such as when you are writing a headline, you can expose this ambiguity. Each headline can be read in two ways. Read an interesting article about this phenomenon in the New York Times by Language Log linguist Ben Zimmer.
