another of the BBC's almost unintelligible headlines

[winterbadger]

Threat video in Spain flat rubble

Comments

[chelona.livejournal.com]

Yep, almost. After the fourth read, this actually made sense. I guess we are not British. :)

[meepeek.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't there be a verb in there somewhere? Found, maybe? (if that is indeed the case) And.. "Spain flat"? Shouldn't it be "Spanish flat" or "flat in Spain"?

Bah. I guess I really do speak American instead of English. I'd argued the point before but I may have to give in and admit Dennis is right. *hrrrrmph*

[winterbadger]

Oh, this is not so much an American-English thing as a English newspaper-the rest of the world thing. Most of the Brits I know just shake their heads about it.

It was really getting to me last year when there were a number of high profile criminal investigations going on in the UK and the Beeb (and other news outlets) were running headlines that used the subject of the investigation as a modifier to "police' in horrendous noun stacks. Things like "Teenager murder police inquiry revelations". Godawful.

[blueinva.livejournal.com]

Made perfect sense first time, sorry! It's the word flat, which of course isn't in common American usage to mean apartment.

I still double take at some American phrases such as gas station.

[winterbadger]

No, it's not just the word "flat"; it's the constant use of nounstacks as headlines, which is a particular trait of British journalist, but not of Britons. For example, I find that the subject lines British people use when posting to listservs are generally no different in strucutre from those Americans use.

And, actually, whether from constant contact with British TV imports or some other factor, "flat", while not nearly as common as it is in British usage, is not particularly uncommon in American usage either, at least on the East Coast.