Sunday, October 21, 2007
The headline Wired Youth Aim to Stir Peers and Sway Poland’s Vote contains three of the most hackneyed words used by lame headline-writers in North America: “aim,” “stir,” and “sway.” All it needs now is “spark” and “controversy” and it’d be a grand champion.
My favourite is “probe” ("Tory MPs in arms probe"), a tabloid classic in Australia and the UK if not in the US.
Posted by andrew olds on 10/21 at 10:10 AM
Well, that might make it the grand champion of hackneyed, but it would still be more tasteful than anything printed on the front of The New York Post in the last few decades. Hmm…let’s see…what would the Post do with this? “CRAZED KIDS PUSHING PALS FOR POLE POWER PLAY!”
Posted by MarkSouthFL on 10/21 at 12:33 PM
The best kinds of controversies are the ones that are sparked into firestorms.
p.s. Hi, Grant.
http://www.screwmusicforever.com/mp3s/podcasts/
Posted by =dan= on 10/24 at 05:23 PM
This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...
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