How Does the Language of Headlines Work? The Answer May Surprise You.
“Headless Body Found in Topless Bar” (New York Post) “Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious” (The Sun) “Nature Sends Her Egrets” (San Jose Mercury) “Why Doesn’t America Read Anymore?” (NPR)
Consider the headline: a bunch of words carefully crafted to grab your attention when you least expect it… and then entice you to spread it far and wide, sometimes in spectacular viral fashion. And that’s just for starters. Before you even get to all the news that’s fit to print, the headline is already way ahead of you, with succinct and surprising spoilers—that can only really be understood if you click. By the time you read a headline, you may already have become incensed by provocative questions, been amused by puns and wordplay or have had your faith restored in humanity by viral clickbait.
In an online age where attention spans are worn thin by information overload, these are remarkable feats for a bunch of words, yet headlines get little respect around here. From titillating tabloid titles to clickbait chicanery, headlines these days have often been derided as the empty calories of information, sensationalist trickery, “the art of exaggerating without actually lying” as Otto Friedrich put it.
