This Sunday’s paper presented two posers. The table that accompanied an article headlined “Special-education pupils failing” on page A2 seemed to show that students with disabilities in Grade 12 graduated from CHS at a rate of 88.5%, while the percent of all students in Grade 12 who graduated was 33.3. Something about that just didn’t seem right. By reading the whole article, I was eventually able to figure out that the column headings in the table had been reversed. Whew.
Okay, so that happens, although that’s pretty much what proofreading is for, to catch little mistakes like that. But how to explain this headline on the sports page:
“Bonds snap homer drought ties Aaron.”
Bonds snap; homer drought ties Aaron?
Bonds snaps homer drought, ties Aaron?
Bonds’ snap homer drought ties Aaron?
Bonds snaps homer drought, ties Aaron?
Bonds snaps homer; Drought ties Aaron?
I can combine some version of any 5 of the words to make a sort of meaning, but I can’t seem to make all 6 of them work together in a way consistent with both truth and grammar. Perhaps someone sporty could lend a hand?
Option number 2 works best. Barry Bonds, who hasn’t hit a home run in a while (hence the “drought,” a phrase pretty commonly used in sprorts reporting), hit a home run that now ties his home run record with Hank Aaron’s.
Who knows why the original headline included no useful punctuation?
LeslieJ is correct in what it is supposed to say. I adore your versions, though. Clever.
I put the same one in there twice, didn’t I?
I concur – that is a screwed up headline. The most obvious solution is to put an “s” on snap. I assume the bad punctuation is forgiven in a headline, because something needs to go between the two independent clauses.
Why were you reading the sports page?
Gary pointed the headline out to me. Which doesn’t explain why he was reading the sports page….