Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Language Log Noun Pile Headline Collection Post


The folks at the Language Log blog like a good "noun pile," and so do I. (They seem to have coined this useful term themselves; I've seen it nowhere else, and an internet search yields no results.) I suppose a "pure" noun pile headline would contain only nouns, like the one pictured above, and like this one . . .

               Fish foot spa virus bombshell
               --The Sun, 10/18/2011.

. . . which I love for the surreal imagery it conjures up.

These three are all from the BBC (!); each consists of a seven-word noun pile supported by a single verb:

               Ministers mull volcano ash cloud flight chaos measures
               --BBC News, 4/18/2010

               Citizen science charts horse chestnut tree pest spread
               --BBC News 1/24/2014

               Pilot Fish Project English Channel crossing bid begins
               --BBC News 8/5/2016

The champion seems to be this one, which even the Language Log people had trouble decoding:

               Napa wildfire LNU Lightning Complex Gamble Hennessey Fire –
               August 2020
               --SFGate 8/18/2020


3 comments:

The Dude said...

When I was reading up on paraprosdokians for the joke posts I ran across garden path humor, and this one stuck with me "The old man the boat".

That's all I have, but it seemed sort of related.

ampersand said...

Now you know who's writing Biden's speeches.

The Dude said...

Before this scrolls off the front page let me say that the title you wrote is a masterful noun pile collection, fer sher.