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Understanding headlines
Many non-native English speakers wishing to practise their English comprehension will at some point pick up an English newspaper and read a few articles. Here are one or two pointers if you, too, decide to do this. Journalistic English has a style all of its own, and this is most evident in headlines. The body text of an article should simply describe an event or occurrence, giving the details in a clear, well-ordered, easy-to-understand way, yet using such typical "journalese" expressions as, for example, the passive structures "is known to..." (for a definite fact), and "is thought to..." or "is believed to..." to express what people think. For example: "The fire is thought to have started in the kitchen and then spread throughout the building". Headlines, however, have rules all of their own. By their very nature, they (usually) have to be short and concise, and their function (and this applies not only to sensationalist newspapers and the so-called "gutter press") is to draw the readerOs attention to the article and make him/her want to read the body text. Here is an abridged and adapted version of a short article that appeared recently in the British broadsheet (quality newspaper) "The Independent". Can you think of a suitable headline for it? Answer at the end of this column. Scientists have discovered the near complete
skull of a genuine ugly monster, a wrinkly faced
dinosaur with sharp teeth and horns that may
have used its face to frighten enemies. Basically, headlines fall into three categories. The first one is the headline that uses the Present tense to indicate that someone has done something. So the headline "Unemployed man wins ?1M" means that an unemployed man has won a million pounds. The second is the headline that uses the Past participle to show that something has been done. So "Six killed in rail accident" means that six people have been killed in a rail accident. And finally, there is the headline that uses the infinitive to show that something is going to happen. So "Queen to visit India" means that the Queen is going to visit India. It should be pointed out that for reasons of shortness and conciseness (as already mentioned), supposedly superfluous words are left out of headlines. This concerns, in particular, the definite and indefinite articles, so it is rare to see the words "a", "an" or "the" in a headline. So we would say "New Shakespeare play discovered" (headline) as opposed to "A new Shakespeare play has been discovered" (sentence). Similarly, the sentence "The White House has been damaged by a bomb" would become "White House damaged by bomb" in a headline. This exercise in shortening is also evident when describing people. Indeed, the word "people" is seldom included, so we say, "Forty die in earthquake", which is understood to mean forty people. And when the age of the person is what is especially extraordinary in an account, we use the "xx-year-old" formula, without any further definition. So, "12-year-old climbs Everest" (not 12-year-old child/boy). If the person had been aged between 13 and 19, the word "teenager" could have been used. And now back to that article about the discovery
of a hitherto unknown kind of dinosaur. Possible
headlines? How about "New dinosaur discovered"
or "Jurassic discovery in Madagascar"?
The actual headline was "T. Rex's ugly
cousin is unearthed".
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