Monday, September 19, 2011

Yes and no

One question in a hed is usually too many, and two is -- well, do the math and then add some zeroes.

Questions, if you have to use them, should at least be real questions. They should be exclusive: "Boxers or briefs?" poses a choice that "threat or menace?" doesn't. And they should, ideally, be literal, or at least only open to one interpretation (literal or figurative) at a time. The answer to "Is sky the limit at air shows?" depends on which you mean:

  • Yes; otherwise they'd be called space shows!
  • Yes, because the sky's always the limit in America!
  • No, because "the sky's the limit" means there are no limits!

Which makes it hard to see why this is on the upper-right side of the front, traditional home of "news," but onward.

If the first question is false, the second is irrelevant. Of course the "quest for thrills" is endangering the public. That's one of the things it does! Your individual risk of being decapitated at any particular motorsport event is pretty small, and it's not markedly different today than it was yesterday or a decade ago, but it's still there, just as it always was.

So the answers to the heds are something like "not really" and "so what?" Or maybe "so what?" and "not really." When the meaningless answers are as interchangeable as the questions, you might want to think about another hed.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Name and shame, please.

7:04 PM, September 20, 2011  
Anonymous Trey said...

I fully support all efforts to conserve, reuse and recycle – and it should be something that the whole nation should be doing – NOW!

Trey

3:41 AM, October 03, 2011  

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