From today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser:
Ok. Headlines like this appear all the time.
From the text itself, the timeline was something like this.
Person on motorcycle was hit by a car. Apparently the person wasn’t injured because, according to the headline, after getting hit by the car, the motorcyclist was somehow injured. We don’t know how.
Now, it seems rather obvious that isn’t what happened, but that’s what the headline says.
How would you rewrite it? Perhaps something simple–“Motorcyclist injured near Koko Marina Center when hit by car.”
..
Perhaps I’m just too sensitive to the written words….
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‘Good one Ian!
Here’s another one you hear all the time: “Pedestrian Crash”. When a pedestrian is hit by a car, the media calls it a “Pedestrian Crash”. ‘Sounds like tow pedestrians crashed into each other.
https://www.pritchettcartoons.com/pedestrian-crash.htm
What is a tow pedestrian?
Two
‘Sorry, typo. “two pedestrians”
How about “Motorcyclist injured by car near Koko Marina Center?”
Me too! Who’s injuring all these people after they crash or fall or get beaten?
I do kind of see what’s going on. “Injured” here is meant to be a state, like “sick” or “dead.” In the aftermath of the calamity we have this many injured, that many dead. But it still bugs me. I wonder why those headlines feel right to the headline writer but not to you or me.
I’m not crazy about man dies after drowning, either.
I think you may have started a “hunt-for-headlines.” Didn’t Columbia Journalism Review devote a page in each issue to this kind of thing? Maybe they still do.
I don’t know if the current practice is the same as in before time, but a writer/reporter writes the story and a headline-writer writes the headline. Doesn’t always translate.
Saturday Night Live had a skit back in the 70s playing on the “A person is mugged every 3 seconds in New York City” headline.
They had a reporter out on the streets interviewing THE person that was mugged every 3 seconds…naturally during the interview there were many interruptions!
I’d probably go: “Motorcyclist Struck By Car Near Koko Marina Center” and then let the article delve into the W, W, W, Ws.
It was only in the 90s, I believe, that there was a concerted effort to reclassify automobile “accident” into “crash”.
I am a grammar nerd, and I have previously emailed SA directly about its poor grammar. I do not know how these headlines make it. Nor do I understand SA’s regular use of paragraph long sentences. There is no harm in making one sentence two, or even three.
I know nothing about newspaper editing. Are there still editors – presumably grammar geeks – that review everything before it goes to print/internet? Or have those positions been eliminated?
Maybe 30 years ago, i sent an email to the Advertiser about a headline error. I got a reply apologizing for the error, that also told me that they no longer had proofreaders.
Don’t be the grumpy old man Ian lol. And sadly you need to lower your expectations when it comes to the Star Advertiser.
They’ve changed the headline! Online, at least, it now says “Motorcyclist, 38, suffers serious injuries after getting hit by car near Koko Marina Center”. That doesn’t help, though, does it? And it puts paid to my theory about “injured” being a state. Unless, of course, the motorcyclist was injured in the crash and now is suffering.
I’m with you Ian. I read some of these headlines and just wince.
I know they have editors. I know one personally, and at least one is quite competent. I think they have good and bad days.
It’s not just the Star-Advertiser and it’s not just Hawaii. A Google News search (or even a general Google search) on “injured after”, with the quotation marks, yields many examples. They all seem to be from US sources, so maybe we’re seeing at a feature of American English as opposed to other varieties. I don’t know.
Since mainstream media has admitted in court they are providers of “entertainment “ not “news” the absorber then understands the circus.
That paper repeatedly stated as fact in news reports that Lindani Myeni was “shot and killed by police following a fight with officers,” as if the shooting had occurred after a mutual combat situation concluded.
A more frank and honest report would have stated that he was shot as he attacked officers who had confronted him outside a home he had been asked to leave.
A more squeamish but still reasonably honest report would have simply stated that he was shot during a violent confrontation with police.
Previous low standards have now plummeted.
I hate it when I’m injured near my Koko marina. It’s a very sensitive area!
I’ll raise you one, Ian. If you look at the HNN website right now, you see the main story headline reads:
Native Hawaiians, residents petition to restore land on which iconic Kauai resort stands on
I was delighted to discover that other folks were bothered by that too. Mahalo folks!