Talk:2584: Headline Words

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 15:35, 26 February 2022 by Miamiclay (talk | contribs) (Correction re The Shipping News (& a typo))
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It is ironic how Cueball, being bald, doesn't have any "headlines". 172.68.11.68 06:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Actually, Cueball being bald would be cause greater susceptibility to the infamous corduroy pillow. 165.225.57.165 23:03, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


I mean, I would be pretty annoyed too if someone talked like that instead of saying "Wow, I can't believe you shot down the idea for the party venue that everyone likes" and "I'm reconsidering my plan (to speak in headline words) since people are starting to get annoyed" (also, "Everyone hated the headline-word thing, so I'm gonna stop") 172.70.178.113 07:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

I have made a new section for trying to explain each of Cueball's three headlines. I tried to make some sense of the first, but think I failed... So please feel free to change or improve my text completely. For sure the above comment gets the correct meaning, but I do not think it is a translation, more a possible sentence to be said instead. --Kynde (talk) 11:55, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

I tried to expand that :) 108.162.238.34 13:02, 22 February 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
After including the stipulation that they "remove grammar" (a vital element to compressing into Headlinese, except of course when it introduces unintentional ambiguity!) I went through and made my own changes to make the "Literal" versions each pad out into the more proper statement(s). I changed some 'literal' wording, but left most and still followed the general source-structure without it being a total rewrite. (Which left some compromises, but should allow the interested reader to still map the various chunks one-to-one and in sequence.)
Obviously, I expect future-editors to advance (or retract) my changes in various ways because they disagree with my idea of 'literal' language, and indeed what is Headlinese. Which is perhaps more British-biased - If I read newspaper headlines (of papers that I often don't intend to pick off the stands) I seem to see a lot of needless alliteration also going into the mix. "Boris backs down over Brexit border boob!" might be a (made up, especially as he tends not to do that, but probably not far from someone's likely interpretation) certain tabloid-style pronouncement. 172.70.85.79 15:42, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
”Squad helps dog bite victim” Szeth Pancakes (talk) 20:27, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for improving the explanation. --Kynde (talk) 11:16, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

It may be possible that Randall is reading the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Shipping News” which is written entirely in headline format. 172.70.178.93 15:11, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Interesting, did not know that. Although I do not think this is the reason for this comic. --Kynde (talk) 11:16, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
”[D]id not know that (The Shipping News “is written entirely in headline format”)” - Understandable, because it’s not at all correct. There is some Headlinese therein (the protagonist writes for a local paper), but it’s not remotely all of it. Miamiclay (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2022 (UTC)