Headlinese

Headlinese is an abbreviated writing style used in newspaper headlines.[1]

Syntax

Because space is limited, headlines are written in a compressed telegraphic style, using special syntactic conventions:

Headlines are generally sentences or noun phrases.

Short forms

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", "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".

Commonly used short words

To save space, headlines often use extremely short words (many of which are not in common use otherwise) in unusual or idiosyncratic ways:

  • axe (eliminate)
  • bid (attempt)
  • blast (heavily criticize)
  • chop (eliminate)
  • confab (meeting)
  • curb (reduce)
  • duo (two people)
  • eye (consider)
  • foe
  • fold (shut down)
  • fury
  • gal
  • guy
  • hike (increase)
  • hit
  • hype
  • ink (sign a contract)
  • laud (praise)
  • lull
  • mar
  • mull (consider)
  • nab
  • nix (reject)
  • parley (meeting)
  • pen (write)
  • pose
  • probe (investigate)
  • quiz (question)
  • rap (criticize)
  • revel
  • rout
  • see (forecast)
  • slam (heavily criticize)
  • stun
  • tremblor (earthquake)
  • tout (endorse)
  • vie (compete)
  • vow (promise)
  • woe (problem)

Many verbs can be converted into nouns, e.g. "rap" could be understood as either "criticize" or "criticism" depending on context.

Custom

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.

See also

References

  1. Headlinese Collated definitions via www.wordnik.com
  2. "Bush, Blair laugh off microphone mishap". CNN. 2006-07-21. Archived from the original on 2007-08-16. Retrieved 2007-07-17.
  3. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35087050

Further reading

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