As anyone who reads a lot of newspapers can attest, headlines are sometimes written with some mighty questionable word choices. (I mean, come on! Do they even read what they write?) Sure, sometimes the wording might be an intentional play on words, like the headline a friend sent me recently. It's from a June 14, 1996 Toronto newspaper, and reads, Marijuana issue sent to joint committee.
No argument... that'd be a rather appropriate place to send it, dontcha think? But was the wording intentional... or an inadvertent funny? I dunno. You decide.
It's been quite a while since we took a look at some newspaper headlines that tickle my funnybone, so we're gonna do that today. But first, let's take a quick look at some blogosphere news, shall we?
[Don't trust atoms. They make everything up.]
Coming up next Monday is a blogfest sponsored by a fabulous (and international) foursome: Stephen Tremp, Mark Koopmans, Elise Fallson, and Carolyn Brown. The idea for that one is, obviously, to briefly introduce yourself to a bunch of bloggers who don't know much of anything about you (Maybe 100 words or so.) No telling what you might have in common with some of the other people you might meet through this fest. Kinda like speed-meeting. You can sign up on any of those four blog links.
[Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name? Jim Morrison ]
[Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out. Stephen Hawking]
Okay, that's all the bloggie news for now. Ready for some interesting headlines?
Oh, yeah. Just one more thing. Today's thought for the day reminded me of something else. In 1845, Frenchmen Frederic Bastiat wrote a satirical letter to the French Parliament, expressing his tongue-in-cheek concerns regarding the candle-making industry. He wrote: We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low cost... This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us... We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights...
Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.
SUSAN ~
ReplyDeleteYou'll recall that in my recent 'Gun Rights Vs. Gun Control' post I included some information taken from a book titled 'TREASON: THE NEW WORLD ORDER', by Gurudas.
Well, your funny headlines in this post reminded me of something else found in that same book mentioned above.
From page 133 comes this:
At his Senate confirmation hearing, future head of the C.I.A. Woolsey was asked how the C.I.A. could be less secretive. He said that he'd rather discuss that in a secret meeting.
It's like we're all living in Alice's "Wonderland" or something. Maybe the entire planet is an 'Oregon Vortex'.
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
HA! That is just perfect. I LOVE it! And you're right; sometimes it does feel like we've fallen down the rabbit hole. But it's up to us to keep reaching up and pulling ourselves back out again.
DeleteSurely there must be bored sub-editors with a sense of humour at work in those headlines?
ReplyDeleteI hope so. I know I'd have a ton of fun writing 'em.
Delete[Don't trust atoms. They make everything up.]
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for the conspiracy nuts to get a hold of that one.
Yeah, them dirty atoms.
Delete"Hey, you lost an electron, dude! Are you okay?"
"Oh yeah, positively."
Leave it to the good ol' American press to provide us with plenty of unintentional humor.
ReplyDeleteThe blogfest concept sounds like a great idea. It would give me an opportunity to increase my blog readership from three people to five. Maybe.
Abso-doggone-lutely! Jump into some of those blogfests. They're fun!
DeleteLike Al, I wonder if those headlines are really accidental, or if somebody is having a snicker over them!
ReplyDeleteI dunno. If they're intentional, I have a lot of respect for the people who wrote them. My kinda humor.
DeleteAh the press...you wonder how editors do not catch these things. I', glad they don't though - provides for good humor!! Kind of reminds me Jay Leno's segment "headlines".
ReplyDeleteP.S. it's good to know that there are other newspaper readers out there. Sometimes I think we're a dying breed.
I'm afraid you're right about newspaper readers being a dying breed. There used to be two Atlanta newspapers, one in the morning, and one in the evening, and a decent morning paper published in our county, too, so I had two papers to relish every day. Then, alas, the Atlanta papers merged into one, and the county paper went belly up. Worse, the last remaining newspaper is getting smaller and smaller. (And more and more expensive.)
DeleteThose are hilarious. I see headlines like that all the time and wonder if they do it on purpose or really don't see what they've done there. So funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd those are some fun blog hops coming up. Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with. :)
Yeah, those kinds of headlines crack me up. Not so funny when the writing within the article is convoluted, though.
DeleteI'm looking forward to seeing what everybody comes up with for some of those blog hops, too. ("Let's go to the hop, oh baby; let's go to the hop...")
LOL those headlines are pathetically funny, who'd print those? geez. hahaha I'd send myself the winning lottery numbers and that would be that, maybe something also for the cat.
ReplyDeleteWell, they only qualify as pathetic if they aren't intentional.
DeleteThanks for the laughs this morning. Mistress of the Universe...still chuckling.
ReplyDeleteYeah, she must be ONE busy gal!
DeleteI bet those deaf kids really got a boot out of the barber shop singers. I suppose they read lips and can feel the vibration. That would work.
ReplyDeleteHave a grand headliner day.
I dunno about that one. I guess they could feel the vibes, but there aren't all that many vibes with acappello music. Oh well. You have a real banner day, too. (Written in red letters!)
DeleteIt took me a minute to realize what the top picture was, at first I thought it was just someone reading a paper, then I laughed out loud. I can't even pick a favorite headline from the ending list, but the barber shop quartet is right up there LOL.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the upcoming fests! :)
I like that pic with the newspaper, too.
DeleteSee ya at a fest or two!
'Woman was alive before she died" was one recent headline. And then there was, 'paper pom pom maker sees gap in the market,'
ReplyDeletePeople actually get paid to write these!! :)
HA! Good ones. Right up there with saying, "Dead bodies found in cemetery."
DeleteI wonder how those headlines got past the editor, but how wonderful that they did. I hate bad news, can find very little good news, and live for funny news.
ReplyDeleteThose blogfests look interesting, but right now I am getting ready for my son's wedding and am doing extra volunteering. Besides, my brain cells have frozen up. Maybe I will try one in the future, but now is not the time for me.
If you hate bad news, I don't reckon you spend too much time reading the newspaper these days. Plenty of bad news in there to go around, but there's always a nugget of good... or funny... stuff, too.
DeleteWooHOO! A wedding! Congratulations! (It's much less stressful being the mother of the groom than the mother of the bride, isn't it?) Enjoy!
*Sigh* My church can barely afford $20 worth of stamps to advertise that we need money. Seriously, members of the stewardship committee delivered pledge envelopes in person this year.
ReplyDeleteOuch. Now, that's rough. Sounds like it's time for the committee to put the "telephone tree" into action.
DeleteBabe! Too much to respond to!
ReplyDeleteOkay, not too much. First, I used to be a copy editor on the graveyard shift -- enormously satisfying job -- and I loved writing headlines! I won an award for 'Outlaw Remains Bone of Contention,' a story about a bad boy from the old west buried in our hometown which some thought of as a legitimate tourist attraction while others wanted the man properly vilified and ignored. :) :)
Thank you for mentioning FSF and the Back From the Future blog party. I chuckled happily a number of times again throughout the post -- my favorite bit: 'register today... or tomorrow... or yesterday. Whatever. Just do it.'
Makes me super duper curious about your entry which I'm sure will be funny and clever, as always!
AND finally, the little Saturn icon is a planet on its return trajectory -- just like FSF, which came back, as well as the individual items people will post, which are also making a return in their orbit.
Have a beautiful day, sweet Sus!
I love, love, LOVE your headline! No wonder you got an award for it. And what a FUN job that must have been.
Delete(Shame on me, but I giggled when I wrote that bit for the FSF. Kinda like laughing at my own jokes. Never mind. I do that, too...)
Gotcha! See, I didn't know if Saturn was coming or going... (Which would make it a good match for your other blog hop, too!)
Half the fun of telling a good joke (and sometimes the only fun) is the laugh we get out of it. :) :)
DeleteTrue. One good thing about cracking a joke; at least ONE person will get a kick out of it.
DeleteWhen I was a reporter and people complained to me about headlines, they were always shocked when I told them the editors wrote the headlines and I had absolutely nothing to do with them. A headline I remember laughing at -- written by an editor, of course -- was "Jobless Figures Tumble." I pictured people without jobs just falling down or perhaps tumbling from windows. I think I would have a lot of fun writing headlines, but nobody was ever foolish enough to give me the chance cuz they somehow knew they'd end up with naughty stuff in the paper.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Heck, with a little bit of naughty stuff in the paper, they might actually SELL more of 'em.
DeleteBrilliant, Susan. Just dragged my migraine out of bed and you made me laugh. Ouch! Worth it.
ReplyDeleteSo, why did you do that? You should have left that lousy so-and-so in the sack, dude. I hope you're feeling better now.
DeleteI proofread reports written by scientists on my job. I've come across some doozies that made me laugh, but never anything as funny as the newspaper headlines.
ReplyDeleteThe doctors I used to work with wrote some real doozies, too. (Hey! I'm not the only one who says doozy! Woo HOO!)
DeleteI suspect most of the amusing spelling mistakes etc, are done on purpose.... and may they long continue to be so!
ReplyDeleteWell, I hope you're right. Done on purpose, they're quite clever. Done in ignorance, they're horrid.
DeleteHi Susan .. I don't know where you get them - but they sure are all good .. I sometimes see things and then that's it and I can't remember for love or money (even!) ...
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the inventions ... shut the sun out - no thanks .. I love my sun when it's around!!
Those quotes are classics .. love them - cheers Hilary
Hi-ya. Glad you liked them. I don't find all of these things myself. Fortunately, I have some friends who know how much I enjoy this sort of thing, and they send them to me. Cheers!
DeleteHilarious! I also love the funny headlines and the stories. Definitely got a big laugh reading yours here!
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say? Great minds think alike.
DeleteI LOVE it, Susan. I can't stop laughing. These are priceless and embarrassing (for the reporters). I get as irritated as I do amused by this stuff. People are actually paid to write it, while the rest of us writers struggle to make ends meet. Grr! =)
ReplyDeletexoRobyn
Glad it tickled your funnybone, Robyn. I know what you mean about the "irritating" part, though.
DeleteLove those headlines but that blogfest about the package from the future is freaking me out! I'm not going to sign up, I'm afraid. Are you doing the A to Z this year? I am but haven't quite decided on what yet.
ReplyDeleteI signed up for that Back From the Future blogfest, but haven't given it much thought yet. Now, the A-Z, I HAVE thought about, and know exactly what I'd write about if I decide to participate... but I dunno yet if I will. Guess I'd better make up my mind, because the only way I'll do it is if I get all the posts done ahead of time.
DeleteStay warm!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteStudying headlines makes me feel like I'm living in a Tim Burton movie. Wait, maybe we ARE living in a Tim Burton movie, a la 'The Truman Show'. That must be it.
ReplyDeleteFunny post.
By golly, you could be right! (I demand better background music!)
Delete