10.24.2008

BREAKING: rampant use of ironic headlines renders them less funny

An unsolicited style note from a neurotic Strunk & White reader:

Not that I didn't use this witty strategy myself back in ye olde Clogging days, but seeing as the Clog failed to publicly archive any posts from the time I was actually working, I can't prove the infraction upon its use I've observed in recent weeks. (And, more importantly, neither can they.)

I'm talking about headlines. Breaking! Important! Ironically important BREAKING NEWS that isn't really breaking but is sort of funny anyway because the subject of the article is painfully and hilariously so obvious that the article itself would clearly be less funny if the painfully and hilariously obvious nature of the article wasn't alluded to in the headline.

Only under the aforementioned circumstances should such a headline be invoked, and only sparingly for optimal effect.

The judging the former is up to the reader, but the latter? Twice in one week is sort of pushing it.

2 comments:

Christine said...

hey, hey. be nice to the younguns.

kfed said...

You're no fun... I'm an old hag!

Might as well say I walked uphill both ways in the snow to avoid being catty, and I still got a hairball.

And don't even start on the mixed metaphor.