The New York Times Magazine “On Language” column has a fun, yet serious, piece today on “Crash Blossoms” — the common occurrence of changed meaning, double meaning, or ambiguity introduced to a headline when one edits out “unnecessary” words to reduce the word count. All the examples cited in the article like “Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge” and “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim” makes for a delightful read, but the piece is also informative for those of us who are writing our own headlines for press releases, and trying to encapsulate our messages in 140 character Twitter posts.
The piece does a great job of explaining why the English language is particularly vulnerable to these “crash blossoms”:
After encountering enough crash blossoms, you start to realize that English is especially prone to such ambiguities. Since English is weakly inflected (meaning that words are seldom explicitly modified to indicate their grammatical roles), many words can easily function as either noun or verb. And it just so happens that plural nouns and third-person-singular present-tense verbs are marked with the exact same suffix, “-s.” In everyday spoken and written language, we can usually handle this sort of grammatical uncertainty because we have enough additional clues to make the right choices of interpretation. But headlines sweep away those little words — particularly articles, auxiliary verbs and forms of “to be” — robbing the reader of crucial context. If that A.P. headline had read “McDonald’s Fries Are the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers,” there would have been no crash blossom for our enjoyment.
Communications professionals write lots of headlines for press releases and other tools where we have to compress our language. So the possibility of creating a potentially embarrassing “crash blossom” when we are shortening phrases is something we need to be vigilant against (although I suppose it could be a brilliant strategy for getting attention, if done just perfectly). It’s all very funny when it happens to others, not so funny when 1,000 tweeters re-tweet your embarrassing mistake.
About Michael Hamill Remaley
Michael Hamill Remaley is Vice President, Communications & Public Policy at Philanthropy New York and President of HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications. Previously, he was Director of Communications at the Russell Sage Foundation and prior to that was Vice President and Director of Communications at Public Agenda. He has held a variety of positions at organizations such as The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, TCC Group and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development.
As the guy who coined the phrase, Crash Blossoms, and yes my last name is Bloom, go figure, this quick aside: I wrote THE SNAILPAPER STATEMENT today, and here’s a preview:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that while the Digital Age is upon us fast and furious, the print newspaper — hereafter dubbed the “snailpaper” — shall persevere as a good daily read, a fascinating look at the world around us and a valuable tool for understanding oped pundits and above the fold headlines. Sure, the dear snailpaper will also be seen as a useful tool
for wrapping fish at the Fulton Fish Market or lining the bird cage in the den, but all kidding aside — har! har! — the daily snailpaper can hold its head high and be certain of its place in the culture. While news migrates in pixels and bytes to the Internet at an exponential rate, piling breaking story upon breaking story and turning everyone and his mother into a 24/7 news freak and RSS aggregator, the plodding snailpaper will nevertheless remain the bedrock of analysis and insight, from sea to shining sea, delivered at a snail’s pace, yes, read at a snail’s pace, yes, and absorbed, word for word — on glorius printed paper! white newsprint reflecting inked letters! — at a snail’s pace, yes, as long as the Republic of Letters shall live.”
Full blast here:
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2010/02/snailpaper-statement-mini-version-by.html