in a world with no editors . . .

Headline, March 6, 2016, The (Syracuse) Post-Standard:

Slipping

tranny

needs 

replacing

 

Granted, the story was in the Auto section, but in this day and age one could argue that the writer of the "hed" should have been sensitive to, um, alternative meanings.

epitaph laugh

Oh, stop, don't go getting all nervous just because you see the word "epitaph." I'm not trying to send a secret message or evoke a mortal concern or any of that. As a former headline writer, I love the brevity of epitaphs. A life in a few words. Succinct. Pithy, as in central core, the organic essential substance. I suspect epitaphs are out of favor these days. I won't get into that. I just want to share a few candidates for my self, some verbal trial balloons, while I am above the dirt.

IT COULD'VE BEEN WORSE

LEADING WITH MY CHIN*

SOME NEVER LEARN

ARTISAN LAUGHORIST, BLOGGER, WORDSMITH

PREDIGITAL CHATTERBOX

SOLIPSISTIC TWEETER

*I'm not saying I favor this one (I don't), but it encapsulates my overeager tendency to please, or be pleasing, or need stroking, or reassurance, thereby inviting, almost begging for, a swift left to the jaw in the boxing ring of life.

Hed Aches

Headline, or "hed," on the front page of The (Syracuse) Post-Standard, July 24, 2008:

Sheriff: Bisesi walked in, admitted killings

subhed:

"The guy wanted to spill his guts and they didn't stop him," he says.

I have to tell you, as I fished in my pocket for the two quarters to pay for the newspaper (all you online readers are wondering: newspaper? what's that, you troglodyte!), I juggled some confusing thoughts in my still-waking brainpan: who is "he"?

I first thought -- excuse my ignorance -- that "he" referred to the murder suspect, Bisesi.

Then I cleared it all up.

Chalk up this confusion to the albatross of miscommunication known as an unclear pronoun antecedent.