Newspaper headlines can be ambiguous and misleading due to tight deadlines, poorly chosen words, and misplaced modifiers. Examples include “Farmer Bill Dies at Home” and “Enraged Cow Wounds Farmer with Axe.”
Newspaper headlines are designed to grab a reader’s attention by succinctly stating the main gist of an article. “Oil Prices Drop Again” or “Sheriff Shuts Down Major Drug Ring” would be examples of simple headlines that prepare the reader for the details to follow. Unfortunately, some newspaper editors working under tight deadlines or other pressured situations can create an ambiguous headline, a confusing or misleading headline with often humorous overtones.
Sometimes an ambiguous headline sounds perfectly reasonable in conversation but falls flat on the page. A newspaper reported a failed agricultural bill with the unclear headline “Farmer Bill Dies at Home.” The unfortunate similarity between a real farmer named Bill falling due in a real house and the bill failing in the state house has created an ambiguity. Other such royal headlines include “Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead” and “Queen Mary’s Bottom Scraped.”
Other cases of an ambiguous title can be caused by poorly chosen nouns and verbs, especially those with multiple meanings. One such headline, which ostensibly promotes the use of small toy chairs to make gardening easier, reads “Children’s step stool great for use in the garden.” When Liberal Members of the British Parliament changed their positions on the Falkland Islands conflict, one headline read ‘British Left Waffles on the Falkland Islands’.
Misplaced modifiers can also lead to an ambiguous title, often with unintentionally humorous results. When two estranged sisters met in a grocery store line after an 18-year separation, the headline read “2 Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout.” A case of apparent bovine revenge appeared in a headline such as “Enraged Cow Wounds Farmer with Axe.” A man convicted of stealing a violin while intoxicated apparently received poetic justice: “Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case.”
Sometimes a misspelled or poorly chosen word leads to an ambiguous title. A crackdown on jaywalking yielded the headline “Police Begin Campaign to Shoot Down Jaywalkers.” A new restriction on winter tires brought the title “Stud Tires Out”. In a situation where the word colleagues might have been a more inspired choice, an ambiguous headline read “Journalist gets urologist in trouble with his peers”.
There are numerous other examples of confusing titles available online and in the humor sections of bookstores and libraries. Nighttime comedians like Jay Leno regularly feature roundups of shady headlines submitted by viewers. Considering how little time a copy editor can have to create compelling headlines, it’s somewhat surprising that there aren’t even more examples floating around in cyberspace.
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