Headlinese is nonconversational, abbreviated writing style used in newspaper headlines.[1]
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Because space is limited, headlines are written in a compressed telegraphic style, using special syntactic conventions:
Headlines are generally sentences or noun phrases.
Individuals are usually named by their last name only, with no honorifics.
Organizations and institutions are often named by metonymy: "Wall Street" for "the financial industry", "Whitehall" for the UK government administration, "Madrid" for "the government of Spain", the "Davos" for "World Economic Forum", and so on.
Headlines use many contractions and abbreviations: in the USA, for example, Pols (for "politicians"), Dems (for "Democrats"), GOP (for the Republican Party, from the nickname "Grand Old Party"), Govt for government; in the UK, Lib Dems (for the Liberal Democrats), Tories (for the Conservative Party). Some periodicals have their own distinctive headline styles, especially Variety and its entertainment-jargon headlines such as "Sticks nix hick pix".
Headlines use many short words that are not common in spoken English:
The vocabulary and grammatical constructs used in headlines have become so culturally ingrained that they are often encountered even where there are no space constraints, for example in internet news agencies' headlines.