Female binge-drinker arrests rocket

[Dave M]

What did you understand by that headline? It's one I came across yesterday on teletext, and I have to say I didn't come up with the real meaning!

There's often a choice of meanings with a headline, sometimes driven by the unusual use of words, but in this case it seemed plain enough to me: some women had got drunk and tried to arrest a missile. Reading the article, I found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of females arrested for binge-drinking.

What makes us choose one meaning over another? I'm guessing that, unless steered by context, we (1) take words to mean what they most often mean (for example, we use "rocket" more often as a noun than a verb) and (2) we take the basic sentence order to be subject-verb-object.

I'm wondering just how much the original author knew of (and enjoyed) the "garden path" effect!

[Barry]

It's a lovely ambiguity, Dave, and worth preserving somewhere; we've mentioned before, in another place, similar headlines - "Monty flies back to front" and "American push bottles up Koreans".

I think you're right in both your points - it's frequency of usage and word order that guide our understanding (though I'd probably put the latter first). I think the ambiguity in this case is compounded by the fact that we could imagine almost any action of a binge drinker!

I think that what slightly untangles the ambiguity is the hyphen in 'binge-drinker', making it a compound adjective (the hyphenated compound noun doesn't make sense, as it would surely be 'someone who drinks binge').

[Sue M-V]

some women had got drunk

First of all, I'd take it to be only one woman.

But actually, I read it with the correct meaning the first time and the other meaning struck me, with joy, afterwards! I don't think there are many people who still use the word "rockets" to refer to missiles or space-craft or even fireworks nowadays. We tend to use more sophisticated terms. The word is frequently used as a verb, though, especially in newspaper headlines. As Barry says, the hyphen also helps.

It is rather good, though, so I shall be adding it to my list of ambiguous headlines for teaching purposes. Thanks, Dave.

Sue

[Paul Doherty]

Brilliant!

[Dave M]

You're right Sue - I meant womAn (I just can't type).

I suppose the main problem lies in my point (1): "take words to mean what they most often mean" ... because we might ask to whom?

I have no aerospace background, but certainly my memories of Dan Dare are stronger than the (to me) rare use of "rocket" to mean "increase quickly". Others will be influenced differently. The main influence for me, though, will be my police background, because "arrest" will always remain for me a more common verb than noun.

We've often spoken before of the need to "consider your audience" - in pitching at the right level of complexity, in avoiding jargon unless common to all, in avoiding words which have different meanings to different language groups (fag, etc!) ... and so on. It had never occurred to me that patterns of familiarity will tip the balance differently in ambiguous phrases.

[Paul Doherty]

The ambiguity relies on the noun/verb confusion between both arrests and rockets. I wonder how many other words there must be like that, ideally where one type is common, the other type rare -- with a suitable list one could write one's own silly headlines. We've already mentioned push and bottles, and I'd add ducks (from CND ducks vote on bomb) and down. The Monty example is different, isn't it -- it relies on the juxtaposition of back and to front -- they have a strong affinity to make back to front.

I suppose spread is another one. I've mentioned before, I think, the supermarket spokesman who, during a food crisis, said that they didn't have much butter, but what they did have they were spreading about between customers.

[Barry]

I'll give some thought to the noun/verb ambiguity list - yes, Paul, as you say, that's what's at the heart of it.

My clipping collection contains a slightly yellowed offering from The Times in 1988. It's a similar construction, but depends, also, on an aural ambiguity:

Sir Vivian Fuchs 80 today

'Lucky old Sir Vivian', was my initial thought (followed by 'I expect he'll be taking a long rest tomorrow').

[Tone]

As another ambiguity, this actually happened yesterday.

I was speaking to a couple of neighbours and one commented that I was one of the oldest inhabitants of [insert town/village where I reside].

The other said that he'd seen many older people around.

Now, had the first said "eldest inhabitants" his meaning would have been clear (I think), but not that which he intended to convey. But what adjective could he have chosen to clarify that I had been here for a longer time than most?

Tone

[Trevor]

Longest-established...?

[Barry]

I often use the phrase 'most long-standing' (or 'longest-standing'). I generally use it in connection with friends, though:

X is one of my friends of longest standing (as opposed to 'one of my oldest friends').

I would probably simply have said 'I have been living in this village longer than most'.

[Paul Doherty]

> I would probably simply have said 'I have been living in this village longer than most'. <

Seems right to me.

Another word for my list: rolls.

[TfS]

I quite like the newspaper headline which read:
Nut Screws Washers and Bolts
which described the escape of an inmate from a lunatic asylum who made straight for the local laundry where he indulged in a swift session of Humpty Dumpty with the girls of said establishment and then had it away on his toes.

[Paul Doherty]

That's a joke, TfS, not a true story, surely?

Another word: crafts

[Gabriel-Ernest]

TfS,
You made that up! (To be read with an air of outraged credulity.) However, I do like the old-fashioned, but evocative expression, “had it away on his toes”. No doubt it would confuse non-English speakers to say that he had it away and then had it away on his toes.

Female binge-drinker arrests rocket.
I read that as a drunken woman had arrested a salad. (Yes, it worries me too.)
If I further pick apart the headline I realise how much is taken for granted.
Female binge-drinker. Suggests it is mainly young women.
Binge-drinker arrests. No one is arrested for binge-drinking; one is arrested for being drunk and disorderly or public drunkenness. (Charles Dickens uses a wonderful phrase, in A Christmas Carol, of someone arrested for being “drunk and blood-thirsty” which would seem to be apposite for what quite often results after binge-drinking.)
Binge-drinking is a redundant phrase as a binge is a drunken bout.

Still, I suppose the headline “Huge increase in the number of arrests for drunkenness in the female population” doesn’t have quite the same bite.

The poet Roger McGough wrote a poem based on a headline he saw which read: “U.S. Flies In Hamburgers”.

G-E.

[Dave]

If Sky-rocket had been used instead of Rocket, then perhaps we'd lean more toward the verb interpretation.

Sometimes, though, I think the headline writer writes ambiguously on purpose--he did get your attention!