Thursday 19 June 2008

"Retail surge fans rate rise fear"

That's the beauty of the English language!

Every single word in that headline could be a verb or a noun. 'Fans' in turn could mean 'aficionado' or 'ventilator', of course...

It could mean:
a) "Fans of retail surges rate fear of rises" (rate = 'have a high opinion of');
b) "Surge fans available at retail outlets rate fear of rises"
c) "There is a fear that the rate of retail surge fans will rise"; or,
d) "The surge in retail [sales] fans the fear of a rise in [interest] rates" (the probably correct interpretation).

1 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

I saw that headline this afternoon and thought it was one of the clumsiest I had ever seen.

Standards dropping at the beeb