Lyrics & Knowledge Personal Pages Record Shop Auction Links Radio & Media Kids Membership Help
The Mudcat Cafesj



User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Lighter BS: Language Pet Peeves part II (323* d) RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II 22 Mar 24

"Trump frustrated as bond deadline nears and key bacteria identified in colon cancer cases."

There's now a name for these syntactically ambiguous sentences. They're called "crash blossoms."

Why? According to Merriam-Webster:

"While crash blossoms themselves are as old as newspapers, the term dates back to 2009, when editor Mike O'Connell saw an ambiguous headline that appeared in the newspaper Japan Today— 'Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms' —and wondered in the Testy Copy Editors forum, 'What's a crash blossom?'"

Post to this Thread -

Back to the Main Forum Page

By clicking on the User Name, you will requery the forum for that user. You will see everything that he or she has posted with that Mudcat name.

By clicking on the Thread Name, you will be sent to the Forum on that thread as if you selected it from the main Mudcat Forum page.
   * Click on the linked number with * to view the thread split into pages (click "d" for chronologically descending).

By clicking on the Subject, you will also go to the thread as if you selected it from the original Forum page, but also go directly to that particular message.

By clicking on the Date (Posted), you will dig out every message posted that day.

Try it all, you will see.