I’ve actually come across three headlines today that I thought were kinda funny, even though I was aware of the context. I imagine someone being pretty confused if they came across them without knowing anything about them:
[ul][li]Report: Solo arrested for Domestic Violence[/li]
[li]Warriors’ Love pursuit hits impasse[/li]
[li]Boring CPO chairman won’t concede Clackamas County board seat yet, asks for partial recount[/ul][/li]
I know there are sites devoted to intentionally funny or misspelled headlines, but what about ones that are unintentionally so that you’ve encountered?
There was a left-wing British politician called Michael Foot.
Suppose he was offered the Presidency of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Then the headline would read:
There are, of course, plenty of books of headlines (Columbia Journalism Review put out the best ones, until Jay Leno literally got into the act), but here’s one I saw myself, in a campus newspaper: Love Doctor Turns on Students
You gotta watch out for those Love Doctors – they can turn on you on a heartbeat, even if you’ve been around them for years.
This was about Leo Buscaglia, and the headline was written by a student editor who was new to the game, or who had a wry sense of humor.
based on this real headline “Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms” which means "Violinist whom you remember because her father was killed in the JAL flight crash has recently blossomed as a performer
That’s the New York Post and they are famous for their wonky headlines. My favorite: Ike Beats Tina To Death. There’s a whole book of NY Post headlines.
I saw one recently that I had to snap a picture of. I’m not sure of the details anymore since I don’t have the phone with me at the moment, but it said something like:
They do, but it’s like the Star Trek episode “Devil in the Dark.” Every 50,000 years, all of the adult turkeys die, except for one who’s the mother of her species. She lays hundreds of thousands of eggs underground. The eggs hatch and the turkeys repopulate the earth.
Reported recent (possibly for-real) headline in a British local paper: “Man mugged by canal”. They can be nasty, vicious, criminal things, these canals…
Back in the dim, dark days when the Houston Post was still printing, I recall a column written by one of their humorists (name escapes me).
There was a law firm at the time in Houston called Sears & Burns. The humorist suggested that they bring in two other lawyers, Daniel Hollers and W. J. Frys, and then change the name to Sears, Burns, Frys and Hollers. That was his column’s headline for the day.
Have you actually seen this one? Because it has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, and in one of their collections.
I love it, but it’s kinda old now – it dates from the Falklands War.
