1.9. Newspaper headline language

Harmony seldom makes a headline.

Silas Ben

Task 1. Study the following examples of newspaper headline language.

A. Features of headline language

Here are some typical examples of headlines from tabloid newspapers with comments on their use or language. [popular papers with smaller pages than more serious papers]

EXPERT REVEALS NEW MOBILE DANGERS

• Articles, prepositions and auxiliary verbs are often omitted from headlines.

• This use of the present simple instead of the past tense makes the story sound more immediate.

• The use of language is often ambiguous. It is not entirely clear, for example, what mobile refers to here. It is actually about the dangers of mobile phone use but it could have referred to dangers that can move in some way. Readers have to look at the story in order to find out.

• Words with dramatic associations such as danger are often used.

TV STAR TRAGIC TARGET FOR MYSTERY GUNMAN

This story is about how a well-known television actor was shot by an unknown killer.

• Tabloid newspapers like to use references to royalty or popular figures like film or pop stars or sports personalities in order to attract readers' attention.

• Alliteration such as TV Star Tragic Target is often used to attract the eye in headlines and to make them sound more memorable.

• Newspapers sometimes use 'shorthand' words such as 'gunman' in order to express an idea or image as briefly and as vividly as possible.

B. Violent words

Violent and militaristic words are often used in newspaper headlines, especially in tabloid newspapers, in order to make stories seem more dramatic.

EU acts to crush terror of the thugs

Palace besieged by journalists

Crackdown on soccer louts

Typhoon rips through town

C. Playing with words

Many newspaper headlines in English attract readers' attention by playing on words in an entertaining way. For example, a story about the theft of traffic signs erected to help tourists coming to see a solar eclipse in the area was headlined Dark deeds. In this collocation dark usually carries the meaning of wicked, but the headline is cleverly playing with the word dark because at the time of an eclipse the sky goes dark.

Another example is the use of the headline Ruffled feathers to describe an incident where a wife was angry with her husband, a wildlife expert, for allowing a Russian steppe eagle to sleep in their bedroom. We use the idiom to smooth someone's ruffled feathers, meaning to pacify someone after an argument. It is apt to use it here as the story is about a bird (although, of course, it was the woman's feathers which were ruffled).

Task 2. Read these headlines. What do you think the stories might be about?

1. MOSCOW BLAST TERROR

2. I’m to reveal soccer lout plans

3. TOP MP IN LONE BATTLE

4. CRACKDOWN ON PORN

5. THUGS BESIEGE TEEN STAR

6. COPS TARGET LOUTS

Task 3. These headlines were written in a pretend tabloid newspaper about Ancient Greece. Match them with the subjects of their stories (a) to (e) below and comment on the features of headline language they contain.

1. NUDE SCIENTIST IN BATHTUB SENSATION

2. KING PHIL'S MACEDONIAN MASH-UP

3. MARATHON MAN IN DROP-DEAD DASH

4. QUADRUPLE ROYAL MURDER SENSATION

5. IT'S CURTAINS FOR CORINTH

   1. Mysterious death of four members of the royal family.

   2. Philip of Macedonia wins battle against city states of Athens and Thebes.

   3. Archimedes' discovery of the laws governing the displacement of water.

   4. Burning of city of Corinth to ground by the Romans.

   5. Long-distance runner brings news of battle victory to Athens and then dies.

Task 4. Match the newspaper articles with the headlines following them.

1. A girl fell from the top of a 50-metre high cliff at Southport and landed on a sandy beach. After the call, she stood up and walked away with only a broken ankle.

2. Theodore Lee has left all his money to the Society for the Blind. He died in April and his entire will of $ 460,000 goes to the Society.

3. Two men broke into a supermarket in Italy and walked off with 240 tins of dog food, worth Lira 120,000. However, they did not take anything else from the shop.

4. Police yesterday began to look for thieves who stole 14 paintings from a museum in Taipei. The paintings were among the best in the mu­seum.

5. Two lorries crashed at the start of a new road system and caused a 7-mile queue. It took drivers three times longer to travel the same dis­tance as on the old road.

6. Ted Cornwall, aged 77, has started his own telephone service for unhappy people. They can ring his home and listen to his choice of jokes.

7. Robert Tadley had a hard day with his three-year-old daughter. At last he asked, "Why do you cry all the time?" Back came the answer: "But I don't cry when I'm laughing, daddy."

8. An amazing voyage to outer space can at last help scientists to discover the secrets of a mystery planet. The spacecraft Voyager 2 can reach the planet Neptune in three years.

1. Lost art

2. Dial a smile

3. Traffic chaos

4. Girl underground

5. Girl's lucky break

6. Thieves with pets

7. Cats and Dogs

8. Picture of a city

9. Bad language

10. Buying a car

11. Ringing the bells

12. Gift for the blind

13. Like a bird in the sky

14. Journey into space

15. Laughter and tears.

Task 5. Write these newspaper articles as complete sentences.

1. GRIMSBY'S NEW MP TAKES SEAT IN COMMONS

2. PRICE OF ELECTRICITY TO GO UP AGAIN

3. VALUABLE PICTURE STOLEN FROM ITALIAN MUSEUM

4. U.S. PRESIDENT TO VISIT IRELAND

5. GERMANY BEATS BRITAIN AT ATHLETICS

6. UNION LEADERS TO MEET PRIME MINISTER ON THURSDAY

7. UNIVERSITY LAB TECHNICIANS ON STRIKE

8. SIX KILLED IN MOTORWAY ACCIDENT

9. BABY HIPPO BORN IN DETROIT ZOO

10. NEW YORK'S OLDEST HOTEL DESTROYED IN FIRE LAST NIGHT

11. PICTURE BY PICASSO FOUND IN CELLAR

12. LARGE U.S. CAR COMPANY TO BE SOLD TO JAPANESE SOON

13. DOG LEFT IN GARAGE FOR 10 DAYS - OWNERS ON HOLI­DAY

14. POP STAR SUZI WELLS KILLED IN ACCIDENT AT WEEKEND

Task 6. Look at this collection of headlines. Say what the following articles can be about.

• President Announces Conference on Nuclear Weapons

• U. S. Embassy Official Opens School

• Typhoid Epidemic In Midlands: Doctors Blame Impure Water

• Bomb Sent To Minister Of Agriculture By Post

• United Nations Plan Attacked In Parliament — "Impossible" Says Minister.

• 14 Injured In Motorway Crash Taken To Hospital

• 10% Of School Leavers Illiterate Says Report — "Report Is Inaccu­rate And Irresponsible" Says Education Expert

• New Shopping Precinct Planned For City Centre

• Queen Visits School In Yorkshire

Task 7. Match the headline to its story and explain the play on words in each case.

1. Bad blood

2. Happy days?

3. Shell-shocked

4. False impressions

5. Happy Haunting

6. Hopping mad

7. Flushed

8. Highly embarrassed

9. Round-up

1. A grandfather's breathing problems were solved when doctors found four false teeth at the entrance to his lungs. They had been forced down his windpipe in a car crash eight years ago.

2. A 25-year-old terrapin is being treated for a fractured shell after surviving a 200 ft drop.

3. A Shetland teacher has suggested labradors or golden retrievers could be used to control pupils in playgrounds.

4. A ghost society has been told not to scare off a friendly female apparition at a hotel.

5. Adults who have never quite grown up are to be offered school theme nights including uniforms, register, assembly and primary school dinners by a Nottingham hotel.

6. An ex-public loo in Hackney, East London, is to be sold for £76,000.

7. A Whitby curate has attacked the resort's attempts to profit on its connections with Dracula: 'a pale-faced man with a bad sense of fashion, severe dental problems and an eating disorder.'

8. A toad triggered a police alert when it set off a new hi-tech alarm system.

9. Firemen had to scale a 30-foot tree in St Leonard's, East Sussex, to rescue a man who was trying to capture his pet iguana.

 SPEAKING

Task 8. Look at the layout of any newspaper or magazine and comment on the function of the various elements used.

A layout is the way elements are arranged on a printed page. The layout includes such elements as the type of letters, the use of bold type, italics, underlining, bullets ( = dots or other symbols used at the beginning of a next passage), the size and number of columns, color, the placement of illustrations. The layout determines whether a text is attractive to the eye and it helps writers to structure their texts and to emphasize certain words, phrases or passages.

 WRITING

Task 9. Take any recent story you’ve heard seen or read and use it as a basis for a tabloid front page. Choose an appropriate headline and design the layout.

  READING&SPEAKING