2. What are grammatical, lexical and stylistic peculiarities of headlines?
The exercises below demonstrate some peculiarities of newspaper headlines in English.
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES
Ex. 1. Certain words are found in newspaper headlines sometimes with a different meaning from that of their normal use. For each of the following “headline words” on the left, find an item on the right with the same meaning (it will help you look at the headlines in exercises 2 and 3 below).
AAXE
BAFFLED
BID
BLAST
BLAZE
CALL
CLASH
CURB
DRAMA
ENVOY
HIT
LEAK
LIFT
POLL
PROBE
QUIT
QUIZ
RAP
RIDDLE
SEEK
SLASH
SPLIT
STORM
TOLL
WED
WOO
a) fire
b) close down, dismiss (usually for economic reasons)
c) conflict, disagree(ment), fight, fighting
d) diplomat, ambassador
e) to escape, escape (of secret information)
f) exciting or dramatic event
g) attempt
h) explosion
i) affect badly
j) remove (restrictions, prohibitions)
k) vote, election, public opinion survey
l) reduce, reduction, limit
m)investigate, investigation
n) criticise, reprimand
o) leave, depart, resign
p) at a loss to explain, mystified
q) attract, interest, win the support of
r) divide, division
s) look for, want, ask for
t) mystery
u) marry
v) angry argument
w) total number of dead
x) to demand, to appeal, demand, appeal
y) question, interrogate, interview
z) reduce drastically
BBAN
BID
FLEE
FOIL
HALT
MOVE
PLEA
OUST
C CHIEF
HAUL
GAG
GEMS
RIG
SWOOP
RESHUFFLE
a) to prevent
b) strong request, call for help, appeal
c) to stop
d) to force out of office, remove from high position
e) to prohibit, prohibition
f) to try to attract
g) run away from, escape
h) action, step, to take action
a) jewels
b) to falsify
c) to rearrange, rearrangement (of senior jobs)
d) raid, to raid
e) director, high-ranking officer or official
f) goods stolen in robbery or taken by police or customs
g) to silence, censor, censorship
Ex. 2. In headlines certain words are used very often because they are short and sound dramatic. Some of these words are not common in ordinary language or are used in a different sense. Headlines also omit certain words (a, the, some, be, been etc.) and use colloquial expressions, abbreviations and different verb tenses. Explain the following headlines in simple English.
Ae.g. UK TO SEND MORE AID TO GHANA
The United Kingdom is going to send more help to Ghana