What is it about headline writing that brings out the worst in people's senses of humor?
Today, on ESPN.com's NHL page, the headline reads "Covered with Leetches". As the brief story blurb below helpfully explains, "Injuries have leached away Philly's depth. On Thursday, the Leafs 'Leetched' away two points from the Flyers' playoff lead with a 3-2 win. [emphases both mine -- SC]".
The "Leetch" jokes are a play on the name of defenseman Brian Leetch, recently traded from the hapless New York Rangers to the Toronto Maple Leafs (for non-hockey fans, that's not a typo, it's a convention). Since "Leetch" is pronounced just like "leech" and "leach", somebody couldn't resist a painfully bad pun.
Strictly as an anecdotal exercise, your host then decided to see if there was any sort of correlation between newspaper sections and pun-based headlines. Presumably, it's stylistically more acceptable as the news gets less serious. Since SC is not running to the bookstore to buy some newspapers from around the country, this is all based on the web versions of today's papers. Therefore, there may be differences between what's here and what came to your house today. Note also that SC is cherry-picking; there are more headlines in these sections, but they largely play it straight:
L.A. Times' front page: "President Urges Unity on Anniversary of Iraq War", "Pakistani Troops Press Offensive", "NATO Quick to Quell Kosovo Turmoil"
L.A. Times' sports section: "A Paint Roller for Gonzaga", "He Took Manhattan; It Wasn't Even a Stretch", "He Can't Bear to Quit"
L.A. Times' editorial section: "An Open-and-Shut Case of Fiscal Flimflam", "In One Key Area, (the Chief) Justice Is Indeed Blind"
For comparison, from the N.Y. Times:
NYT front page: "Bush Marks One Year Since Start of the Iraq War", "Taiwanese Leaders Survive Shooting Incident Ahead of Vote", "More NATO Troops Arrive in Kosovo, With More to Come"
NYT sports section: "In Opener, Manhattan Makes Upset Look Easy", "Long Day of Wit and Wisdom, Mixed With Head-Scratching", "Nicklaus Seeks 1st Win in 8 Years"
NYT editorial section: "Taken for a Ride", "Teaching Us a Lesson", "The Free Lane on the Information Highway", "Only Machines Need Apply"
The L.A. Times seems to have a fondness for alliteration on the front page, but no out-and-out puns; the New York Times plays it straight. The contrast even holds up in the sports section; all 3 of the selected L.A. Times headlines are either plays on clichés or puns between two meanings (the Gonzaga headline refers to a section of the basketball court, and makes a pun out of it with a painting tool; the "Bear" headline is a play on Jack Nicklaus' nickname). The New York Times will "run with" clichés in the sports section, but I still see no puns. It seems, though, that no joke is too cheap for editorial headline writers at either paper. 7 headlines, 7 clichés. Ugh.
Of course, this sample size is far too small to draw any serious conclusions. But SC will guess that collecting a corpus over the course of a few months would reveal some fairly consistent tendencies. Not that he has any idea what it would prove.
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