"French airliner goes down killing all on board"..

[max_tranmere]

What do people think about newspaper headlines that are put in inverted comma's - like I've just done with this title? That, of course, means there is a possibility that has happened, it has been claimed by some as possibly having happened, someone has stated it might be the case. This was on the sandwich boards of all Evening Standard paper sellers in London today, and many people were reading it as if the inverted comma's were NOT there. People were regarding this as a statement of fact, when the newspaper was saying (although not very obviously) that it was only a possibility. This is very irresponsible journalism, dont you think? Several people I spoke to today read this as fact - and as of now 9.20pm on Monday night - we STILL don't know what has happened to the plane!

[JonnyHungwell]

It must have crashed because after a certain time it would have no fuel left - so seeing it hasn't landed anywhere it's either been abducted by aliens or it's crashed. I think it's nearly 100% certain it's crashed - the quotes are only there because it hasn't yet been visually confirmed, although it's almost certainly true.

Could be terrorism.

On the subject of punctuation: Susan Boyle's neighbours have shown themselves to be barely literate with the banner outside their house that read "Susan your a star in our eye's"

[Sam Slater]

Eh?

What did you want the paper to do? If the people reading it don't know what the inverted commas are there for then is that the editor's fault?

I suppose there are better headlines that could have been thought up which took the severity of the probable tragedy into account, without confusing Joe Bloggs too much but then people would complain that papers are 'dumbing down'.

The headline is accurate, so hardly irresponsible journalism.

[Sam Slater]

[quote]It must have crashed because after a certain time it would have no fuel left[/quote]

Erm.....true, but I assume that it had enough fuel to get from Brazil to France so could have made an emergency landing somewhere before running out of fuel.

I'm not saying it hasn't crashed, I'm just saying that if it has I don't think it's due to running low on fuel.

[jj]

"... and has an enormous schlong".

[see page 5 for details]

[Lizard]

jj wrote:

> "... and has an enormous schlong".
>
> [see page 5 for details]
>
>

But nowhere near as big as Lizards...

[jj]

Look, I've SEEN Liz's [he WILL keep waving it around, damn him-
and now, of course, we are once again banned from WI jam-making
sessions, Lib-Dem constituency meetings, and also forbidden by
law from going within 300 yards of Gordon Brown or the local
vicar]...

... but honestly,it's TINY. And wrinkled.... and [yuk!] bright blue.
Lizard penises are in general not pretty things to look at.

But it IS bifid, so he's at least able to 'pleasure' two lady lizards
at once. I had a video of this, at one time, but for the sake of
humanity's sanity, I destroyed it.

[jj]

"RP, Destroyer of Worlds" ??


Nah, don't believe it ; _))