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One of the guidelines nearly every publication practices for its headlines is that each one should have a verb (one thing that the BBC also does well in the abo
by Elepsis 17y ago
One of the guidelines nearly every publication practices for its headlines is that each one should have a verb (one thing that the BBC also does well in the above examples). The verb enables a reader to quickly grasp the "action" in the story and gives people a better understanding of the central point of the article.
Your rewrite does little more than remove the verbs, making the headlines less clear, in my opinion.
- iain 17y agoActually, he removed the prepositions, not the verbs. I wouldn't mind the front-loading as much if he didn't remove the prepositions, but to me those two rearranged sentences sound awkward regardless. I wonder if the journalists who write the articles choose the headlines, or if the BBC has a `Headline Phraser' job.
- Elepsis 17y agoGood point -- it doesn't remove the verbs entirely. However, it removes them from their natural place in the sentence and puts them somewhere where they're likely to be missed entirely. By front-loading the headline with only the nouns, he puts what is arguably the most important part--what _happened_--at the end. But you are right that the awkwardness is mostly due to a lack of prepositions.