Part of my newspaper route involves door to door deliveries in apartment buildings. Often when I am walking the halls, I will read the front page or flip through and glance at the headlines in the other sections. Sometimes, something interesting will catch my eye and I will try to remember to look it up online when I get home (I hate slowing down when I am in a good stride and besides, with an armful of papers it is difficult to search inside to see how long an article is and to read it).
Today there was a story about the new proposed animal control bylaw and last night's public meeting specifically regarding cats and licensing and what to do with strays, etc. Below that was a box that usually has other stories you can find inside the paper and on-line. That headline read "PEORIA SENDS DOGS UP RIVER. FOR A PHOTO GALLERY OF DOWNWARD DOGS GO TO .... I thought, how horrible! Then I wondered what kind of photos they had. Probably just of the river. Then I wondered where the heck Peoria was. The only one I knew was in Illinois. I figured this must be one of those small towns that had been swallowed up in merges with other smaller towns and given a new name that no-one ever uses.
Now granted, I am usually on auto pilot when I am wandering these hallways and I have been known to humorously misread headlines.
So when I got home and checked it out, it all made sense.
The local CFL team are the Tiger Cats, more commonly known as the Ti-Cats. Or, especially in the print media, just the Cats. The local AHL team are the Bulldogs. Or, in the print media the Dogs. I don't follow sports, so you can see where confusion might set in. Though, this much I knew, I just keep forgetting. And, it seems Peoria really was the one in Illinois and with further investigation I discovered their team is known as the Rivermen.
So, really, that was a very clever headline.
*I am sure, at some point there has been a headline that read
it was reigning cats and dogs last night
I think newspaper people must have a lot of fun with sports headlines. There's so much room for a little humor and wordplay.
ReplyDeleteI like yours, too!
Wow. That's a whole lot of stuff you need to know to understand the headline...
ReplyDeleteThat's a fun read! That's how my brain works, too. And it IS too early for a Santa cave. sigh...
ReplyDeleteCheers from Cottage Country!
June: the sports seem to have the most fun - I guess with all those nicknames and plays and stuff. most of it goes over my head.
ReplyDeleteJazz: and if it is sports, most of it goes over my head.
Jenn: glad I'm not alone in this! I did have a good laugh at myself afterwards.
Kinda what June said. I'll glimpse a headline out of the corner of my eye and be all "what??" and then realize it is the sports section.
ReplyDeleteGeewirs: yeah, sports people do live in another dimension.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time the football teams were known by their geographical names. Now they are all known as Cats, Bombers, Eagles etcetera, and while some of these names have been known since Adam and I were boy and girl together, others crept in while I was not paying attention, so I have no idea who they are or from whence they come. It never seems worth finding out, either.
ReplyDeleteyou have a newspaper route? My son deliverd justone day, and we stopped him, here they exploit kids. They pay adults $14. and kids $3 for the same work.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers seemed inclined towards silly headlines.
ReplyDeleteAnyone could have got misled! We get strange headlines over here, too! You have to know what they are talking about before it makes sense. If it does then, even!
ReplyDeleteSAW: sometimes, the headline is the best part!
ReplyDeleteGilly: I LOVE the British papers for their great punny headlines!
Ann: that isn't right at all. we have only morning newspapers now and the routes are far too big for kids to do. I deliver about 300 papers.
ReplyDelete