another of the BBC's almost unintelligible headlines

[winterbadger]

Threat video in Spain flat rubble

Comments

[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.