
Headlinese - missosoup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlinese
======
KineticLensman
My favourite example was "Foot heads arms body" which was allegedly created
although not perhaps used by the Times when the UK politician Michael Foot was
put in charge of a disarmament committee [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot)

[Edit: emphasised the ambiguity picked up Confiks]

~~~
Confiks
However, Wikipedia suggests [1] (the primary source is unreachable for me)
that "the headline does not, however, appear in The Times Digital Archive,
which includes every day's newspaper from 1785 into the 21st century. It is
found in a letter published in The Guardian in 1978. [2]"

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot#In_popular_cultur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot#In_popular_culture)

[2]
[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39001580/foot_heads_arms_bod...](https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39001580/foot_heads_arms_body/)

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downerending
In the clickbait era, I've also noticed everything amped to 11. One no longer
"disagrees", one "slams". One no longer "loses", one "gets destroyed", etc.

Not a fan.

~~~
smcl
I think there's a similar effect in play to 1984's "Newspeak". While Newspeak
was designed to restrict freedom of expression and quell any nascent
revolutionary feeling, Headlinese seems to lend itself perfectly to these
intensely polarised feelings. I don't think it's a new thing though, it's
certainly been employed by the British press for as long as I can remember.

And the constraint does lend itself to some fun creativity in the sports pages
at least, see "Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious"[1] and "Young
Boys Wankdorf erection relief"[2] for example.

1:
[https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/554447/where...](https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/554447/where-
are-they-now-whatever-happened-to-that-inverness-team-who-went-ballistic-and-
the-celtic-side-they-battered/)

2:
[http://m.espn.com/soccer/story?storyId=337901&src=desktop](http://m.espn.com/soccer/story?storyId=337901&src=desktop)

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adriantam
Same in git commit message, we need to put as much information as possible in
the fewest number of bytes to make it useful. I am looking forward to an
article name "committese"

~~~
gpantazes
I use these 7 git commit message style rules [1] to establish my foundation of
"committese". Things like "Use the imperative mood in the subject line" give
commit messages a succint, consistent style.

Everything after that is finesse, personal effort, and ability to express
things succinctly (much like the personalized "headlinese" styles mentioned).

[1]: [https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-
commit/](https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/)

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tcgv
Interesting. Now I know why, as a non native english speaker, I sometimes get
confused after reading english language online newspaper headlines.

