For a while now, I’ve been collecting newspaper headlines that I’ve found, for whatever reason, difficult to parse. Today, I discovered a neologistic name for such garden-path headlines, brought to you by the venerable Language Log: crash blossoms.
Like mondegreen, Cupertino, and eggcorn, “crash blossoms” is taken from an example of what the phrase itself refers to. The original headline is, “Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms”. Your first attempt at parsing this headline might end in confusion, as you likely took “JAL crash blossoms” to be a noun phrase (especially given the priming effect of seeing “crash blossoms” by itself elsewhere in my post). However, the intention behind the headline is that “JAL crash” is the noun phrase, and “blossoms” is a verb whose subject is the violinist. A less ambiguous rewording would be, “The career of the violinist who was linked to the Japan Airline crash has been blossoming.”
The first headline I saw that made me start writing them down was: “Avalanches Close Passes”. At first I couldn’t figure if the avalanches had caused the mountain pass to be closed, or whether the road closure due to avalanches had passed and is now over. After some thought, it seemed obvious that the first meaning is the correct one, but it took me several attempts to make it through successfully.
Another amusing headline I saw recently was: Peanut Plant Was Cited for Violations. I pictured inspectors digging up an individual peanut plant and issuing it a citation. And, in the hockey arena, I saw this headline: Varlamov’s clutch save keys Washington’s Game 1 win. I still don’t understand who thought that mouthful of a headline was a good eye-catcher, but I find it almost impossible to parse the first time through.
Seen any good ones yourself?
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