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by Nedra Vittachi

A recent headline in a newspaper proclaimed that a certain senior official had been stripped by his minister. On reading the text of what promised to be a salacious story, one learnt that the official in question had not been unclothed (as the headline clearly implied) but that he had been stripped of his official duties. Sub-editors, seeking to keep their headlines brief resort to this kind of butchery often with disastrous results.

A couple of similar headlines were: 'Suicide bomber blows himself' and 'Drunken father dashes infant'.

I have heard that the media persons in the Philippines too, have this craze for brevity in headlines. Municipal Councillors are always referred to as City Fathers in the Philippines, but this is too long for a headline. One bright spark started referring to them as 'Dads' and it caught on. Once, in a news item about some women councillors, the headline writer unblushingly referred to them as 'Lady Dads'!

Mixed metaphors

The classic mixed metaphor is 'The hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket'. Shakespeare can write of 'taking arms against a sea of troubles' and get away with it but you and I cannot.

A sports writer recently had this howler: 'The Indian team capsized like a pack of cards'. In a recent book by a prominent Lankan I read of 'a galloping upsurge in the number of students'.

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