Forbidden ledes

Looks like this one is spreading among the crime reporters downtown.

Remember, kids: Only you can prevent Forbidden Ledes. 

Forbidden heds

Just in case you're tempted on Thursday -- don't. "Ready, set, shop" is on the Permanently Banned Under All Circumstances Amen list.

It's never too late

If you need an arbitrary point on the calendar at which to forswear evil and embrace good, too bad about the whole New Year thing. But there's still plenty of time to make an Old Christmas resolution -- for example, "I shall wash the Forbidden Verbs right out of my hair and send them on their way":

The Spartans celebrate a 33-30 victory over the University of Georgia at the Outback Bowl on Monday in Tampa. (1A)

Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins celebrates after scoring against the Los Angeles Lakers last week. He has since demanded a trade from the Kings. (2B)

Senior quarterback Kirk Cousins celebrates a fourth-quarter touchdown that gives Michigan State its first lead. He would lead another TD drive in the final minutes to force overtime. (1C)

MSU sophomore cornerback Darqueze Dennard celebrates one of his two third-quarter interceptions, this one for a 38-yard touchdown.(4C)

William Gholston celebrates after his fumble recovery in the second quarter. He also led MSU with seven solo tackles. (4C)

The Cowboys’ Markelle Martin celebrates after he recovered a fumble in the third quarter. (6C)

Writing is supposed to be at least a little bit difficult. Banning the Verb of Satan isn't much of a challenge, but it's a start.

And don't do this either

Q: Is it still a forbidden hed if it's in the NYT?

A: Why, is there some reason it wouldn't be?

Forbidden ledes: Not your typical

All forms of this lede are permanently barred, under all circumstances:

The masked man who locked a fake bomb to the neck of an Australian millionaire's teenage daughter did not look like your ordinary violent criminal. The gray-haired attacker wielded a baseball bat but wore beige trousers and a light-colored dress shirt, rolled up at the elbows.

Is the AP going to enlighten us on what "your ordinary violent criminal" looks like? I'd be kind of tipped off by the baseball bat and the balaclava, I think, but maybe the gray-haired violent criminals in AP's neck of the woods don't wear light-colored dress shirts before Labor Day or something. I'm trying very hard not to think "did not look like your ordinary violent criminal" is AP-speak for "wasn't black."

AP writers shouldn't leave that impression, of course, but AP editors shouldn't pass it along, either, and AP members can certainly consider calling the control bureau to complain after they spike it themselves. But generally, that's why you avoid proclaiming that anyone is or isn't your typical single mom, college student, crazed Vietnam veteran, party activist or whatever: (a) there is no such thing, and (b) it's a good idea to keep your biases and preconceptions to yourself until you get over them.

Hard to see what makes this pedestrian feature the top news story on the frontpage, even at Lexington, but that's a different rant.

On this old rockpile

Here's another one for the If You Want A Friend, Get A Dog contest.

Sorry, no. "Around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday" will be three or four minutes after sunrise, and the forecast calls for isolated thunderstorms with a 30% chance of rain. How much did you say you wanted to bet on "sunshine and balmy weather"?

But that gets us into quibbling -- whether what you see at 6:30 in the morning a few days hence counts as "sunshine" or not. And we need to be looking at a bigger concern. What do the predicted meteorological conditions have to do with this story?

Giant shock alert, kids. It's cold around here in February! That's a much safer prediction than declaring sunshine around dawn five days in advance. But random weather fabrications aren't the point. This seems to be a story about the former mayor's impending exit from jail. Shouldn't we be writing about that, rather than about what the reporter thinks will be happening in the clouds next week?

While we're here? I've grown deeply tired of heds and cutlines of this form:

Prisoner #702408, aka Kwame Kilpatrick, was jailed 14 months

I propose a ban on any and all text and/or display type that calls 'em by a number, not a name. That's for tabloids and country songs. Grownup newspapers don't do it.*

* Though if you don't like Lester 'n' Earl, you have deeply and seriously come to the wrong blog.

Preemptive forbidden hed strike

Just a reminder, as we get all sweetness 'n' light about the dawn of labor peace in the pro football ranks, that heds of the form "ready for some football?" in all its variants are forbidden unto the end of time Amen.

Yeah, I know it's what you did last year and what everybody else is doing. Do you start to see some sort of correlation here?

Why do you think ...

... they're called "forbidden heds"?

"It's official" is perhaps the least useful two-word phrase in the hed lexicon. It does you no good. There are no circumstances under which it can do you any good. And here, it does you no good at the cost of a third of the lede headline.

Pain at the ... wait, what?

"Pain at the pump," as regular readers know, is permanently forbidden, under all circumstances, forever and ever amen. So does it occur at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network out of blithe disregard for the Cliche Police, or because statistical reasoning is a known handmaiden of liberalism, or ....?

Let's start by seeing what the problem is. Here's the AP, at Fox:

Americans are feeling the pain at the pump. In Hawaii, the sting just got a little worse.

Do tell.
Read more »

No, don't. Please

And back by popular demand ... wait, that can't be it. Why did someone think it was necessary to drag "pain at the pump" out of that comfy box of earth from its home country where it had been sleeping and turn it loose once again on an innocent world?

Rather than tracking down all the fishwraps that have indulged themselves in a little pump masochism over the past week or so, let's see what the same writer had to say three years back:

A new report from the Oil Price Information Service says most of Ohio, including all of the central part of the state, is doing comparatively well in dealing with gas prices.

The Pain at the Pump Index finds that the median Franklin County household spends 4.6 percent of its monthly income on gasoline, a figure that is lower than in 86 percent of counties nationwide.

So not only is there a "Pain at the Pump Index," but it shows that Columbusians are doing fairly well out of things? Well, shazam. Since the writer remembered to call the same professor to opine on the likely impact of that latest doings, do you suppose he could have checked in this alleged index while he was at it?

You can have lots of fun just running phrases through a database from the comfort of your own home. Imagine how cool it would be if you got to show reporters the gory details before hitting the "send" button, rather than after.

Forbidden heds: Preemptive warning

Be forewarned. No name puns in heds. No "Bowled Over." None of that other stuff you kids are thinking about, either.

FOY 'pain'

Sometimes it's like being on bird-poop watch at Capistrano, you know?

Once more with feeling: No "Pain at the pump." Ever. Retire it. Shun it. Let not your friends fall into temptation. Upside the head with sticks hit them if necessary.

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

... another of the year-round Forbidden Heds, sneaking in while our attention is on the seasonal atrocities. No more "not your father's," ever, under any circumstances.

The radio seems quite busy now with the conceit that Thanksgiving is "the new Black Friday." Let's set that one out on the midden for the wolves, shall we? And while we're at it, let's ponder what might happen if we didn't have a shopping centerpiece on the Friday front.

Forbidden heds

Not to be distracting your vigilance from the great cliches of Xpesmastide (see John McIntyre's comprehensive list), but do bear in mind that heds of the form "Mr. ____ Goes to Washington" are permanently banned under all circumstances.

No formal ruling yet on heds of the form "Harry Potter and the ____  ____," but extreme caution is advised lest ye be caught with thy hand in the cookie jar when the trump sounds.

Forbidden heds

Heds of the form "And then there were ..." are banned under all circumstances for all time, amen. Your election is not and never will be an exception.

Please make a note of it.

Forbidden heds: A slight return

I haven't been formally keeping track of the frequency of campaign cliches or how they come and go,* but I'm going to nominate "under the bus" for the Mrs. Joyful prize for Stupid Politics Cliche of the Past Two Election Cycles. Please consider it banned forthwith. Even if the candidate himself is the one who said it, keep it out of the hed.

Why this bit of Tuesday-morning-quarterback whining should be a 1A story is a different issue:

Losing Republican guber­natorial primary candidate Pete Hoekstra said Friday that the head of one of the most in­fluential groups in state GOP politics — Right to Life of Michigan — should be fired.

He's actually one of a bunch of losing GOP primary candidates, and not even the stupidest or most malevolent (given that he is Pete Hoekstra, that's going some). But the circular firing squad is only news under rare circumstances, and this doesn't seem to be any of them.

Forbidden heds

In case they didn't get the memo down at the Miami Herald, the [blank] + [blank] = [blank] construction is permanently banned under all circumstances. This hed must not be used. Offenders' fields will be salted, their cattle will be slain and thrown into their wells, and their children will be sold unto Media General amen.

Somewhere in this favored land lives someone who has never seen this hed before. That person may be among your readership, but don't bet on it. It's old. It's weary. It was a cliche when Great Caesar gave a passing glance to Ides + Brutus = Trouble and went straight for the sports page.* Try something different.


* Cicero used to complain that there was too much idle crap about the "gladiatorial pairs" in the news he got from home. Rly!

Just stop it

Dear cousins downtown:

Under the general heading of "no more stupid sports heds that play on people's names," see Datsyuk, P. If "Dat's it," "Dat's more like it!" and "Dats the question" were all the rage last year, what makes you think you've come up with something original this year?

Cut it out. Now and forever. Please.

Forbidden heds

No, don't. "Bowled over" is on the list of permanently banned hed cliches. It is the Omega unto the Alpha of "Ready for some football?"

Run it not, nor suggest it, nor let thy fingers dawdle over the B-O-W-L-D-O-V-R keys, lest thy name have an awful black mark next to it when the last trump sounds and Great Cthulhu comes forth with a copy of the bulldog edition and a dismayed look on his face. For that will not be pretty, amen.

Forbidden heds

Q: I thought heds that played on sports figures' names were forbidden under all circumstances.
A: They are.

Q: Does that mean two heds in four days mangling Pavel Datsyuk's name provide a sure sign of the apocalypse?
A: Almost certainly.

Q: Would the desk have been saved from the flames of eternal torment if it had settled on whether the short form should be "Dat" or "Dats"?
A: No, probably not.