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Rape a weapon of war in Congo, activists say
Are journalists taught that, rather than submitting to the whimsical caprices of grammarians, it's important to be clear and (unless inevitable) unambiguous? If they are, we can thank the sane minds that try to make this a better world, and hope they get some more back up, because we need more of them. If not, we can thank the insane minds that write ambiguous news headlines, often with hilarious results.
Visiting CNN today, I stumbled upon a very curious headline: "Rape a weapon of war in Congo, activists say". My first reaction was to flinch back, squint, and think "Jesus Christ, pacifists are raping weapons now!?". Then it dawned on me, and I realised no bazookas had been sodomised. Rather, poor women (and sometimes children) were victims of sexual violence in Africa. Sure, that's still heart-breaking, but "shoot your load" would still mean "fire your ammo" in the war, and no images of hippies getting freaky with rocket launchers would burn your retina.
This is, as you can imagine, not unheard of (funny titles, not perverted hippies). The Associated Press reported last month that "McDonald's fries the holy grail for potato farmers": If you first thought Ronald McDonald incinerated antiquities, this is not your fault. Sometimes it's even harder to understand what kind of message they're trying to convey. Bad mental images are not uncommon if you try to figure out what "crash blossoms" are in a headline that reads "Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms", and if you're told "French left torn in two in row over EU constitution", it's only natural to think that a violent Europhile tore some poor French nationalist apart in a fight (actually, this on is quite tricky: this is about the French left - as in politics - being defeated two times consecutively).
Can you think of other unintentionally funny headlines? And, by the way, when you read the title, what did you think it meant?
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Last edited by Lira on Oct-17-2009 at 19:47
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