Civic body, no civic sense, but Sackrifice?

Headlines have to say a lot in few words, space being a constraint. The idea is to attract attention to a news item and them draw the reader into the text underneath it.

The Times of India has in the past used puns in some headlines, as if they were all written by Bachi Karkaria. She is a punster and read this to estimate her incorrigible capacity for playing with words. She writes a regular column, Erratica.

Yesterday's (May 10, 2013) one headline in that newspaper deserves an applause. Mumbai's city government was told by a judge of the Bombay High Court that the civic body that "you are not behaving as the municipal corporation for the maintenance of Mumbai, but as the municipal corporation for the destruction of Mumbai".

Of course, what Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud said was not part of an order or a judgement but a part of the proceedings on a public interest litigation (PIL).

Instead of the trite stuff like 'Judge raps' the civic body etc., the headline said this: High court slams BMC for lacking civic sense. A civic body without civic sense.

Compare it with this headline, Sackrifice for survival, in DNA, of May 11, 2013, for a story on how Railways Minister, Pawan Bansal had 'sacrificed' a goat to remain in office but had to finally quit when asked to by the Prime Minister following a bribery scam involving Bansal's nephew. It was a combination of 'sack' and sacrifice'.

It has to be noted that we don't know if the goat was sacrificed or fed since the media - newspapers, television and social media - speak of both.

It rings false, but such headlines, such coined words always do.

Do losses increase or widen?

Profits remain steady, increase or decrease. Adjectives can be used to describe its pace of change dependent on, well, the pace of change. It can be a slow, steady rise, a sharp surge, or even a gentle, soft curve on the charts or even a point where there is no profit or no loss.

Losses, whether slow or quick, can be traumatic for any business, and one just has some or heavy losses but these are subjective. They can be big or small.

But have you heard of 'wide losses'? If you haven't, then read this headline in the Business Standard of May 7, 2013: Adani Power's losses widen to Rs 586 crore in Q4.

Of course, losses can increase too, that is, what was a loss in revenue or profits yesterday could be have some more added to it  today, thus increasing it.

"Wide loss(es)" is, however, not entirely wrong, provided it is properly used to describe something else. For instance, If every other scrip or a a sector on the stock market slide on a given day, then it is indeed a 'wide loss'. Not otherwise.

A good example of the use of 'wide loss' is in Financial Times, (February 4, 2013) which can be read here.It would suffice to read the headline and the first paragraph where losses in all major 10 sectors were reported.

'Boston bomber' is charged, but remains a 'suspect'

This blog likes to look generally at the usage of words in the media, mostly print. Mostly, among them, newspapers.

That takes us to the use of the word 'suspect' in stories dealing with news about crimes. In this particular case, the Boston Bombings.

The latest, and a fine example, is its use in a headline by The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper. When referring to Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers, he is a 'suspect', in a New York Times syndicated piece.

In the text, he is mentioned as having been 'charged', though the 'suspect' is missing in the NYT's headline. It points to the man being already 'charged' and of the on-going investigations. In both the newspapers, he is prefixed with the honorific, 'Mr.'. This is a practice even in The Economist - pointed, but polite, courtesies to even suspects and, yes, to convicts as well.

Indian newspaper could refer to Dzhokar Tsarnaev as 'an accused' since he has been charged. Once he is, if he is, convicted, then he becomes a convict. But the tendency in Indian media is to refer to any person picked up for suspicion becomes an accused, an unfortunate tradition.

The television news networks are worse: a man could well be tried well before legally being charged. These days, even hanging is described as the best punishment in the trial by television.

Elsewhere, the law enforcers look for the suspect first. here, we look for the 'accused', even if unidentified by name.

It is all to do with the finer points of a situation. The implications of a suspect being let off but being accused of a crime in the media are not understood. The police may be poor in use of words, the media needn't be.

Huge bribe case only a 'slur'?

Today's Business Standard"s lead headline is Another corruption slur on UPA.

That, even as one case of graft after another is emerging from the woodwork. It is no more a shock, no more a scandal, and having become quite routine, even the newspaper's headline writer seems to have had his pen dulled.

A slur, among other things, is only a disparaging remark which hurts one's reputation. And what is the UPA's reputation? Breeder of corruption and protector of the tribe of the corrupt.

So, in a lighter vein, to say the UPA is not corrupt would be against its reputation.

If you read the entire story, you would see that it is, aptly, only a "latest controversy". Latest, yes, but only a controversy?

Words say a lot, don't they?

Status quo and status quo ante

This is about status quo.

A headline in The Hindu on April 23 had this headline, Revert to status quo, India tells China.

Today, DNA slugged a story on Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid's China visit, thus: India wants the platoon of Chinese troops, who have erected their tents in that area, to pull back and restore the status quo.

On March 23 The Hindu had used status quo in a headline.

This usage is incorrect. Once something changes, it is not status quo, and when it has to be taken back to what it was, then it is to status quo ante. Merriam-Webster says status quo ante "s the state of affairs that existed previously". 

What India is dealing with is the status quo - about the here and now - of Chinese troops on Indian side. If they leave, then they situation would not be to status quo but to status quo ante. Status quo, as the same dictionary says, is "the existing state of affairs".

Who was chasing and who was captured on CCTV?

What does this headline, Sleuths in trail of men caught on Boston video, in The Times of India (April 19, 2013), tell you?

For one, it could mean the detectives who were going after the Boston bombers were caught on camera. Or, the sleuths were chasing the bombers whose images were captured by the videos by CCTV in the area. Going by the news item of which it was the headline, the second is correct.

The headline and the text of the news item can be read here.

News headlines in print are difficult to write for they have to explain the news in brief and also attract attention of the reader. They have to be concise and pack a lot.

J-school students and rookies who write news are often told that the headline is, generally, the summing up of the first paragraph which in professional jargon is a 'lead' or 'lede', the latter in vogue in the newsrooms in the USA. The lead or lede has to be a summing up of the entire news item.

Space available for the headline, depending on the importance of the item relative to others on the page and also its architecture, forces the headline writer to compress it as much as possible and yet be informative but could lead, as it has in this case, to confusion. It could even be hilarious.

During my college days, the equivalent of today's junior college was Intermediate and popularly, Inter. When new textbooks were introduced for these courses, the Deccan Chronicle, then confined only to the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad came out with a gem: New textbooks for Intercourse. The space for the headline did not leave room for it to be in two words!

Any examples you would like to share?

'Apropos' the 'storm'

Did Jorge Heine in his The death of  poet in The Hindu need to start off 'Apropos of' when apropos is a preposition which actually means with respect to? Or Concerning.

Earlier, a headline in the same newspaper need not have used the 'into' - it was Protesters storm into Presidency University, attack students. A mob, whether of the CPM or the TMC variety, just storm.

Comments are invited.